


Waiting For Heaven

by Gemmiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Romance, heaven can't wait
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:01:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 25,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemmiel/pseuds/Gemmiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas join forces to investigate several mysterious disappearances. Cas is still harboring a lot of anger and resentment over the way he was unceremoniously kicked out of the bunker, and Dean is still carrying a lot of guilt and worry on his shoulders. In order to work together, the two of them will have to work through their issues first.  </p><p>Based on spoilers for 9.06, "Heaven Can't Wait."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

An angel of the Lord didn’t belong behind the counter of a convenience store.

Dean Winchester reminded himself that Castiel wasn’t an angel, not anymore. He was just an ordinary human now. At least he certainly looked like one.

Dean stood on the sidewalk and stared through the smudged window of the Gas-N-Sip, seeing the startling new openness on Cas’ face as he smiled at a customer. It was an easy, friendly smile that somehow looked completely wrong to Dean. Before, Cas had worn Jimmy Novak’s body like a garment that didn’t fit too well, not unlike the overlarge trenchcoat he’d always worn. He’d seemed uncomfortable, _awkward,_ in his skin, and Dean had always been conscious that this body wasn’t Cas, not really. The true Castiel was something unimaginably vast, winged and many-eyed and so far outside the human capability to comprehend that the faintest glimpse of it would destroy a mortal instantly. This nerdy tax accountant façade wasn’t Cas, not really. 

Except now, strangely, it was.

The former angel seemed for the first time to have settled comfortably into his human body. His face was mobile, smiling easily, his movements were smooth and natural, and his eyes were bright and…

Well, _happy._

Something twisted in Dean’s chest, something angry and petty and childish, and he tore it out, metaphorically speaking, and stomped on it. Because he _wanted_ Cas to be happy, damn it. Of course he did. Cas was his friend, and if he had to be a human, then he damn well deserved to be a happy one.

He just wasn’t sure he could cope with Cas being so happy, when he himself was so miserable.

Still standing there, he heaved a sigh. He hadn’t wanted to kick Cas out. He’d been kind of pushed into it. Blackmailed, even, if he was going to be honest about it. But that knowledge didn’t ease the guilt much.

He’d intended to set Cas up in a safehouse, the same as they’d done for Kevin. Cas had stayed the night in the bunker, while Dean made phone calls and got together a bag with everything Cas might need-- clothes and food and all the cash they had on hand and fake IDs and credit cards. And most importantly, a cell phone, so they could keep in touch.

But in the morning, he’d gotten up to find that Cas was gone.

He didn’t blame Cas for being pissed, but at least the former angel had had the good sense to take the bag Dean had put together for him. Dean was hugely relieved to know Cas had some money on him, so he wouldn’t be eating out of dumpsters any more. And the fact that Cas had a phone and he could contact him made him ridiculously happy.

He’d taken to texting Cas every night (making damn sure Zeke didn’t find out about it), but Cas never answered. But Dean didn’t stop texting. He’d gotten into the habit of praying to Cas nightly a long time ago, in Purgatory, and he knew that just because Cas didn’t answer, didn’t mean he wasn’t listening. So every night he texted him a few lines, telling his friend he missed him, and letting him know what was going on with the Winchesters. 

And then this morning, out of the blue, Cas had texted _him._

Dean’s heart had thundered in his chest when he saw the text pop up on his screen. Thank God Sammy hadn’t been in the room with him, because he was sure his face had given away everything he felt in that instant. Pulse pounding, throat tight, he’d looked at the text and read the terse message:

_People disappearing here. Think we ought to check it out._

His hands, he was annoyed to discover, were shaking, but he’d managed to tap out a reply:

_Tell me where you are and I’ll be there._

When Cas replied, he’d made some lame excuse to Sam, who’d looked at him oddly but hadn’t pushed the matter. And then he’d jumped into his baby and the two of them had made the five-hour drive here, with Dean blasting classic rock and singing along to it at the top of his lungs. It occurred to him vaguely that he hadn’t sung along with the radio for a long fucking time, but he squelched the thought and kept on singing his heart out.

Now he stood on the sidewalk outside the Gas-N-Sip, golden afternoon sunlight pouring down on him, and became aware that his heart was pounding again. What the fuck was wrong with him? Yeah, of course he was happy to see Cas again, but Jesus. He was acting like an awkward, pimply high school girl with a crush on the star quarterback. It was embarrassing, that was what it was.

He was almost too nervous to move, but he forced his feet to cooperate, and moved toward the door. It swung open, a bell ringing, and Cas glanced up with that friendly, open smile on his face.

Which promptly dissipated the instant he saw Dean.

“Hello, Dean,” he said.

His voice, at least, hadn’t changed. He’d always uttered Dean’s name in a low, gravelly rumble that somehow reminded Dean of the Impala’s V8 engine, his low tone charged with the power and force of an angel. The sound of his name spoken that way sent chills down Dean’s spine, and reminded him of the awful moment when Cas had died, stabbed through the chest by a blade, and Zeke had brought him back to life.

Because the first thing he’d said, the _very first thing,_ was _Dean._

That single word had gone through Dean like an arrow, and he'd wanted to babble so many things in response. _Jesus Christ, Cas, you scared the fucking hell out of me. I thought you were gone. Thank God you’re okay, oh, thank **God...**_

But he’d suddenly become aware that the tears he’d felt burning in his eyes when he realized Cas was dead were threatening to fall. 

So he’d straightened up, glared down at his friend, and said in a deadly voice, “Never do that again.”

And Cas had looked up at him and said meekly, “All right.”

He’d never seen Cas meek before. Cas was a soldier, a terrifying force of destruction, ancient and fearsome, a kickass angel of the Lord who smote enemies with a remote, cold expression on his face. But in the face of Dean’s fear-fueled anger, he’d gone meek, almost submissive.

In that moment, Dean had realized that the soldier he’d known was gone for good.

Cas didn’t look meek now, but he didn’t look cold and remote, either. There was a wary caution in his blue eyes, the expression of a dog who’d been kicked one too many times, and expected another kick any time now. 

At the look in his eyes, Dean felt his heart clench again. The guilt was fucking _killing_ him, damn it. He hadn’t been able to tell Cas why he had to go, that Zeke had just saved Cas and he owed the guy, or that it had been a matter of Sammy's _life,_ which was now held in Zeke's hands and could be snuffed out in an instant if he didn't cooperate. It was a complicated situation, and he didn’t dare tell Cas any of it, because he knew Cas would be pissed with him. He knew perfectly well what Cas would say.

_You’re letting an angel use your brother as a vessel? Dean… that’s a very bad idea._

The thing was, he knew perfectly well it was a bad idea. He didn't need Cas to tell him that. There were thousands of fallen angels circling, looking for vessels, and a lot of human bodies just weren’t able to hold all that power without falling apart. Sam had been able to contain fucking _Lucifer,_ so it made sense that he was one of the best vessels, if not the best, on the whole damn planet. Dean had the uncomfortable, niggling worry that once Sam was cured, Zeke wasn’t likely to let him go voluntarily.

And yet letting Zeke in had been the only way to save Sam’s life.

He reminded himself firmly that it was Cas who’d assured him that Zeke was a good soldier. And so far, he was. He didn’t have any reason to doubt that Zeke was on their side, if you put aside the blackmail thing. Yeah, he wasn’t sure why Zeke had said _some of us still do believe in our mission, and that means we believe in Castiel_ if he wasn’t willing to actually back the guy. If he was okay with throwing Cas to the wolves at the first hint of trouble, then why had he helped Dean find him in the first place?

But trying to figure out how angels thought was an exercise in futility, and always had been. He was pretty sure Zeke wasn’t a full-on dick, unlike most of the angels. But he was also pretty sure Zeke had his own agenda, and that sooner or later, it was going to clash with Dean’s own.

Fuck it. Fuck everything. He couldn’t worry about all that shit just now. He shoved away the concerns that were always hanging around the edges of his mind nowadays, and let himself drink in the sight of his friend thirstily.

Cas had shaved since he’d last seen him, and gotten his shaggy dark hair trimmed. He wore a green t-shirt (which Dean recognized, with a ridiculous twist of his stomach, as one of his own) and a new pair of jeans that looked like they might have actually been ironed. He looked clean and well-fed, and the lines of weariness that had etched his face when they last met were gone.

“Hey,” Dean said roughly, uncomfortably aware that the only thing stopping him from running to his friend and flinging his arms around him was the counter separating them. “How ya doin’, Cas?”

Cas’ newly expressive eyes said, _I’ve been cast out by Heaven, and then by you. How do you think I’m doing, assbutt?,_ but he only said, “All right, thank you. How are you?”

“Okay.” Fuck it, he was so much better than okay, now that he was here with his friend. His heart was light and his feet felt like they were three inches off the floor and he wanted to break out in a loud, off-key chorus of Foreigner again. _God,_ he’d missed Cas. He cleared his throat, planted his feet firmly on the ground, and said, “So. When you have a break, want to talk about these disappearances?”

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.” Dean stood there, staring at him, somehow unable to make his feet move. Cas looked at him coolly.

“While you wait, have a burrito,” he said, and there was unmistakable bitterness in his voice. “They’re delicious.”

All of a sudden Dean remembered that night in the bunker, remembered Cas chowing down on a Gas-N-Sip burrito with enthusiasm, safe and warm, clean and fed, for the first time in days. He’d looked so damn happy to be off the street and back among friends. And then Dean had opened his goddamn mouth and said, _You can’t stay._

God, no wonder Cas looked so bitter. Cas probably hated him.

He hated _himself,_ damn it.

The absolute last fucking thing he wanted right now was a damn burrito. He turned without another word, unable to bear those accusing blue eyes watching him, and stalked from the store to wait outside.


	2. Chapter 2

Human emotions were confusing as hell.

Take now, for example. Cas stood behind the counter of the Gas-N-Sip, going through the motions of his job, but inside his head, a riot of emotions surged and roiled. He was happy to see Dean, and yet for some reason the knowledge that he was happy somehow… what was the phrase?... oh, yes, “pissed him off.”

He considered that, turning over his emotions, sorting through them, examining them like a child looking at a handful of shiny pebbles. Yes, he decided at last, he was undeniably happy to see Dean. The first glimpse of the other man’s face had sent a spike of joy through him, too strong to be mistaken for any other emotion. Dean’s presence undeniably made him happy.

And yet he was also aware that he’d wanted to draw back his arm, curl his hand into a fist, and break the pretty boy’s goddamned nose.

He couldn’t quite understand how two such diametrically opposed emotions could coexist inside him at the same time. It wasn’t as if he’d never experienced similar emotions before. As an angel, he’d been capable of a terrible, righteous rage, and he’d also felt love for his family and fondness for his human friends. In particular, the sight of Dean, or the sound of his voice, had always caused a warm affection to coil deep inside him. 

But angelic emotions, he was discovering rapidly, were a tepid, halfhearted thing compared to the confusing human emotions that buffeted him now, tangling in his chest like ropes that knotted more tightly the more he tried to pull them apart to examine them. He’d been human for several weeks now, and perhaps he should have already become accustomed to the intensity of human emotions. But in all those weeks, not once had he felt so much.

Somehow, he thought grimly, it figured that it would be Dean who could provoke such a reaction.

“Go on. Get out of here.”

Cas came back to reality with a jerk, and saw that his boss Nora was standing next to him. Nora was a nice woman, perhaps ten years older than the apparent age of his own body, her black hair liberally streaked with iron gray. She was a single mom raising a pair of rebellious teenagers, and Cas admired her calm poise in the face of constant familial strife. He was also appreciative that she’d given him a job, which allowed him to rent an apartment. A small, dingy apartment, to be sure, but it was better than nothing at all. The days he'd spent on the street had taught him to appreciate the virtues of having a roof over his head, not to mention food.

“I just need a break,” he said apologetically. “My friend…”

“Yeah, I saw your friend.” She winked and nudged him in the ribs. “He’s a looker, ain’t he?”

Cas shrugged. He still wasn’t accustomed to seeing Dean’s face so plainly. As an angel, what he’d seen most clearly had been Dean’s soul, shining so brightly that it almost hurt to look at it. It wasn’t that Dean was unmarked, unblemished, and pure—far from it, in fact. He’d killed many people, and had been through Hell, quite literally. But strangely enough, all the abuse his soul had suffered had only served to polish it until it glowed, like metal burnished to a gleaming shine by heavy wear and tear. Castiel had never seen a human whose soul shone quite like Dean’s.

But now his merely mortal eyes could no longer see Dean’s soul, and what he saw was an ordinary human face. A pretty face, admittedly, with high cheekbones and startlingly green eyes and the melanin spots called freckles scattered over the cheeks and nose. He could also see lines at the corners of Dean’s eyes that hadn’t been there before, not to mention a few scattered light hairs in Dean’s brown hair that hadn't been turned gold by the sun, but turned silver by the years. Dean was aging… slowly, thus far, but like any human, he would eventually grow weak and feeble, assuming he lived long enough. 

It occurred to Cas that one day, Dean would die.

It was strange how much that idea hurt. He’d already come to grips with the fact that he himself could die now. In fact, he had already died, but Dean had somehow bargained with the reaper to bring him back to life. Dying had been unpleasant, and he didn’t especially look forward to doing it again, yet the thought of his own death didn’t worry him that much.

But the possibility of Dean dying—that thought made his heart stutter and his breath catch. When Cas had been an angel, of course, he'd been well aware that Dean’s existence on Earth would be but an eyeblink compared to his own vast lifespan. He’d always known Dean would die, but he had expected to find him again in Heaven. Now there was no such guarantee. He was no angel, was merely mortal, and he might never find Dean again, once one of them died. He wouldn't have the freedom to wander through Heaven to find the other man, and might have to go through eternity alone. The thought sent a terrible ache of loneliness through him.

“A looker?” he answered. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Nora snorted, a sound that eloquently expressed disbelief. “Go on, shoo,” she said again, making a sweeping motion with her hands. “He’s waiting for you. You can take the rest of the afternoon off if you want.”

There was a glint in her eyes that made Cas suspect she thought there was something between the two of them, something more than mere friendship. Well, he wasn’t going to disabuse her of that notion if it got him an afternoon off. “Thank you, Nora.”

He shot her a smile and went outside. Dean, he saw, was slumped in the driver’s seat of the Impala, staring into space. His eyes were dark and thoughtful, and he looked tired, introspective, like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. 

Imagine Dean Winchester being moody, Cas thought with wry amusement. What a _shocking_ surprise.

He knocked on the passenger side window, and Dean actually jolted. He’d been brought up as a hunter, and it wasn’t like him to zone out so completely. Dean never let his guard down. It was what made him such a great hunter… and such a crappy friend.

Cas sighed, pushing the bitter thought away, and pulled the handle, opening the door. He sank down on the seat of the Impala and drew in a long breath. The car smelled like Dean, like leather and clean sweat and fresh air and the faint but unmistakable scent of Dean’s skin. His heart thudded in his chest, but he ignored his body’s reaction and closed the door behind him.

“Okay,” Dean said. “Whatcha got for me?”

“Maybe we had best discuss it somewhere else,” Cas said, looking around cautiously. “One of the people who disappeared is a regular customer of mine. The culprit or culprits could be nearby.”

Dean nodded and turned the key. The Impala sprang to life with a roar, and Dean turned his head a little, a question in his eyes.

“We can discuss the matter in my apartment,” Cas said. And then was shocked that he’d said the words. He hadn’t meant to say any such thing. The last thing he wanted was Dean in his personal space. And yet…

He thought of Dean’s long form draped over his sofa, his lanky legs stretched out and propped on the crate he used for a coffee table, his scent filling the air, and an odd sort of anticipation rose within him.

****

“Nice place.”

Dean said the words without any sarcastic or cynical inflection at all, but Cas still bristled. _Bite me,_ he thought, and was promptly baffled by the strength of his reaction. Dean was used to living hand to mouth, and the fact that Cas’ apartment reflected fairly acute poverty wasn’t something that Dean was likely to give a damn about.

Nor was it something Cas should care about, either. Poverty meant little to him, as long as he had food to eat and a roof over his head. The fact that his furniture was mostly scavenged from people’s castoffs, that his books and dishes had been purchased at Goodwill, shouldn’t bother him in the least.

And yet somehow, it did. Because he couldn’t help comparing this sad, dingy little place to the bunker.

To _home._

An unfamiliar rage swelled in his chest. When they were done with this job, Dean would drive back to the bunker, to the happy little home the Winchester boys had created for themselves and a few select friends. He’d go home to Sam and Kevin, and perhaps the “geek girl” Charlie that Dean talked about all the time, and leave Cas here, all alone. 

Cas didn’t know why Dean had decided he wasn’t worthy to stay in their home, to be a member of their family, and he was damned if he’d ask.

It was painfully clear that he wasn’t welcome. He didn’t have to know why.

Perhaps he didn’t _want_ to know why.

“Have a seat,” he said, refraining from thanking Dean for the compliment to his apartment. He didn’t feel grateful to Dean Winchester, and wasn’t going to pretend he did. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Dean sat on the couch, which creaked under his weight, and looked up at him, a faint smile curving one corner of his mouth upward. “You’re so damn polite, Cas. Stop treatin' me like a stranger, will ya?”

“You _are_ a stranger to me now,” Cas said, barely recognizing his own voice. Even to his own ears, he sounded cold and remote, so like the angel of the Lord he’d once been that he had the satisfaction of seeing Dean cringe slightly, as if in fear of a good old-fashioned smiting.

“Cas…” Dean looked up at him. His eyes filled with pleading. “Look, Cas… I’m really sorry.”

Cas turned over several different responses in his head, and finally settled on the one he thought most appropriate. The one that Dean himself would have been most likely to answer with in a similar situation. “Fuck you,” he said.

Dean’s eyes widened. “What did you just say?”

“I said, fuck you.” Cas felt his lips draw back from his teeth. He embraced the feeling of rage that grew inside him. If he were still an angel, he would have stretched out his hand and smote the human on his sofa, and enjoyed every minute of it. As a human, he had nothing to strike out with except words. He felt that they were a reasonably satisfactory substitute. “You can go fuck yourself, Dean Winchester." 

Dean stared at him a moment, his mouth hanging open, and Cas felt a tiny stab of amused satisfaction beneath his fury. He’d shocked the other man. Good. If Dean was going to throw him out like an unwanted kitten, he'd damn well show his claws.

“Look, Cas, I swear I didn’t want to…”

“Do not even try to explain yourself to me.” Cas heard the anger in his voice grow hotter, felt the fury surging in his chest with every beat of his heart. “We are not friends, not any longer. I asked you here only because there is something strange going on, something that we should investigate. Do you understand?”

Dean’s eyes filled with shadows, and he lowered his head as if trying to conceal his feelings. “Yes.”

Stiffly, Cas turned around, found a stack of newspapers, and dropped them beside Dean, on the couch. “Three in the past week,” he said shortly, trying to tamp down his anger and turn his attention to the job at hand. Human emotions were unruly, but with practice, he was beginning to learn how to contain them. “A lawyer, a child, and a writer. No connection that I can see. And then yesterday, one of my regular customers disappeared.”

“Is there an article about him?”

“He was not the kind of person anyone would be likely to notice missing,” Cas said, his voice brittle. “Just a homeless man.”

Dean winced slightly. “You sure he’s disappeared?”

“I asked around his usual hangouts. No one has seen him.”

Dean glanced over the articles quickly. He could read very rapidly—he often disparaged himself as a dropout, but over the years Cas had come to realize that Dean was every bit as intelligent as his younger brother—and in a moment he dropped the papers back down on the couch and sat staring into space, as if analyzing and tabulating what he’d just read.

“No sign of angels,” he said thoughtfully, “at least none that the papers mentioned. Nothing that would suggest demon activity, either.”

“No leads at all that I could see,” Cas agreed. “I found nothing via an online search, either. I think we will need to fall back on interviews.”

“Yeah, good plan,” Dean said. He stood up, stretching, and Cas remembered that he was accustomed to strenuous daily activity and had been confined in a car for five hours. He tried not to watch the sinuous movements of Dean’s long, muscled body as he extended his arms over his head, dropped his head back, and arched his spine. “I guess I should go find my suit and my FBI badge, huh?”

“I don’t have a suit,” Cas blurted out. He was suddenly conscious of his shabby clothes, the old t-shirt borrowed from Dean and a pair of cheap jeans from Wal-Mart. Which was absurd, because Dean was far from a clotheshorse, and wore jeans and flannel shirts all the time. Dean wasn't superficial that way, and didn't judge anyone on what they wore. Intellectually, Cas knew that.

But for some reason he didn't care to analyze too closely, Cas wanted Dean to see this body at its best. And maybe that wasn't all that surprising. It had, he reflected, never really been _his_ body before. But now that he was no longer just a renter, he was apparently developing the vice of vanity.

At least as far as Dean Winchester was concerned.

“No,” Dean agreed. “I guess you wouldn’t, not since you left the old one behind. I don’t have a spare, and mine wouldn’t fit you anyway. Let’s stop by a department store on the way.”

He turned and walked toward the door, Cas trailing in his wake. He didn't look at Cas again.

Cas told himself he was relieved.


	3. Chapter 3

“The tie,” Dean said, “has to be blue.”

Cas almost, but not quite, rolled his eyes. “Haven’t I worn a blue tie long enough?”

That was sort of the point, but Dean refrained from saying so. He’d kinda gotten used to Cas always wearing the same outfit: an ill-fitting cheap polyester-blend suit, a tie that always hung a bit crooked, and a trenchcoat that was a little too big for him. Somehow he couldn’t quite get used to the sight of Cas in other clothes.

He had to admit there was something to be said for seeing Cas in other outfits, though. He'd always thought of himself as a lot bigger and more sturdily built than Cas, but he was surprised to see that the other man filled out the green borrowed t-shirt just fine. He’d somehow imagined that beneath the ill-fitting clothes, Cas was kind of skinny and dweeby, but in fact he was pretty well muscled. 

Not that Dean was looking or anything.

He dragged his mind back on topic. Cas, he thought, needed to wear a tie that matched his eyes, just like the last one. A vivid summer-evening-sky tie, the same impossible shade as his eyes…

Dean became uncomfortably aware that he was waxing poetic in his head, and chopped off the thought before it could go any further, or, God forbid, make its way past his lips. It was okay, he told himself, to get all gushy about the color of Cas’ eyes in the privacy of his own brain, but he was damned if he’d go on about it out loud. Girly moments always had to be kept private. That was the _rule,_ damn it. 

He clamped his mouth shut before he could embarrass himself, and turned away and started rummaging through the ties stacked neatly on tables in the department store. “Here,” he said, picking one up. “This one.”

“Fine,” Cas said with a hint of impatient condescension, as if he really just wanted to get on with the job so he could hurry up and get away from Dean. His tone stung, but Dean couldn’t really blame him. He deserved all the contempt Cas could throw at him, and then some. Cas added the tie to the dark suit and white shirt he already held, and glared. “Can we get going now?”

He sounded for all the world as if being in Dean’s presence disgusted him, _nauseated_ him, and Dean’s heart sank still further. Cas had been his friend for years, his best friend, really. And now Cas didn’t even want to be near him.

“What about a trenchcoat?” he asked. “You want a new one?”

Cas appeared to think about it, then shook his head. 

"You sure?" Dean tried for a grin, with limited success. "It's weird to see you without it, dude."

“I’m not that person anymore,” Cas answered simply.

Dean's grin faded. He knew it was true, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

*****

He pulled the Impala up in an alley behind their first destination—because it was unfortunately a well-known fact among angels, demons, and monsters that the Winchesters drove a ’67 Impala, which meant it was a smart idea to keep her out of sight as much as possible-- and glanced over at Cas. Until this moment, he had been keeping his eyes firmly on the road, trying his best to ignore how Cas looked. With the charcoal gray suit and blue tie, even without the trenchcoat he’d always worn, he looked much like he always had, so comfortably, reassuring familiar that it made Dean's heart twist in his chest. 

_He looks hot._

Dean ignored the little voice inside him, just like he always did. He wasn’t gay, and the fact that he found Cas attractive was something he’d always put down to angel mojo. Naturally he’d been a little, well, _drawn_ to Cas when he was an angel. Who wouldn’t be? Angels radiated power and light that you could sorta see on some level, even when they crammed all that splendor and majesty into the meatsuit of an ordinary human. He figured just about anyone would get a little hot and bothered in the presence of all that angelic glory.

But Cas wasn’t an angel anymore. Metatron had somehow siphoned his grace out of him, the way Dean sometimes illicitly siphoned gas out of other cars to feed the ever-thirsty Impala. So it was clearly impossible that Dean still found Cas attractive. It must be like an afterimage or something—sorta like the way when you looked at a bright light, you'd see a weird purple splotch on your retina for a while afterward. 

Yeah, he decided, turning off the rumbling engine. That was it. He was still a little blinded by residual angel mojo, that was all. But he’d get over it eventually, and then he and Cas could go back to just being buddies.

Except Cas didn’t want to be buddies, and Zeke had made it pretty clear that option was off the table anyway.

He became aware that his fingers were clenched on the steering wheel. He forced himself to relax, opened the Impala’s door, and tried to shove all his circling thoughts into a deeper, darker corner of his mind. The job. He was here on a job, and he needed to focus on that, not on all his personal crap. 

Cas got out of the car too, and Dean couldn’t quite help glancing at him as they moved down the alley. Cas looked like his old self again, only hotter, because this suit fit like it was supposed to, instead of hanging off him the way his old suit had done. His tie hung straight because Dean had knotted it, his dark hair was combed, and he looked groomed, impeccable. Hell, he looked like a million bucks, like a guy who’d just stepped out of the pages of _GQ._ Looking at him, Dean felt the weirdest sensation, like someone had hit him in the stomach with a two-by-four.

 _Stop it,_ he told himself, walking a little faster, like he could outrun his reaction. _He’s the same nerdy little guy he always was._

He wasn’t interested in Cas that way. Hell, he wasn’t interested in _guys_ that way. And he was absolutely not staring at Cas like his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets, just because Cas had cleaned up unexpectedly well. He wasn’t even _looking_ at Cas, damn it, he was—

Falling over a curb, apparently.

His finely honed hunter reflexes saved him from a broken nose or a black eye (though where the fuck his finely honed hunter reflexes had been when he was tripping over his own damn feet like a clumsy teenager, he didn’t know and preferred not to speculate). He flung out a hand as he crashed to his knees, scraping the shit out of his palm but otherwise avoiding injury. Still on his hands and knees, he cussed lividly, more from embarrassment than pain.

“Dean!” Cas’ voice was filled with anxiety, and before he knew what had happened Cas was kneeling beside him, taking his damaged hand gently into his own, and looking at it with anxiety in his eyes.

Anxiety and—grief?

“Hey,” Dean said. He could hear an odd note in his own voice, a kind of sensual rumble, like he was in bed and whispering sweet nothings into a woman’s ear. Which was kind of weird, considering the situation. It wasn't like Cas' gentle touch turned him on or anything, it was just... He curled his fingers over the torn and bleeding skin, which smarted like hell, and tried to pull his hand away, but Cas had a death grip on his wrist. “I’m okay.”

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s just a scrape. No big deal.”

“You’re bleeding.” Cas sounded horrified. “ _And I can’t fix you._ ”

All at once Dean remembered the many times Cas had used his mojo to heal him—more than once from injuries that Cas himself had caused—and he suddenly realized why Cas had that look on his face. He’d been playing guardian angel for Dean for a long time, protecting him, watching over him. 

And now he was powerless.

He had a feeling Cas was seeing a lot more than just a little scraped flesh. Judging from the expression on his face, a look of stark horror, he must be imagining Dean being shot or stabbed or badly injured, while Cas was unable to do anything but stand there, watching helplessly, hopelessly, as Dean died right in front of him…

Fuck. He knew how that felt. God, he knew.

“It’s okay,” he said, more gently. “Just needs a little alcohol and a bandage, that’s all. No big deal. Everyone gets scrapes every now and then.”

Cas stared at the damaged skin of his palm, and Dean could have sworn he was about to cry. “I should be able to fix this,” he said. His voice was soft, but Dean could hear the self-loathing in it. “It was so simple—but now it’s impossible—and you’re _hurt—_ ”

His voice cracked, and Dean felt sympathy and embarrassment twine inside him. God help him, Cas was actually _crying._ Over a _scraped palm,_ for Chrissake. Cas was going to sit here in this alley, holding his hand and crying over it, and... what the _fuck_ was he supposed to do when faced with a crying dude?

Well, he thought, he had to calm Cas down somehow, or the guy was going to be completely useless on this hunt. It was Cas' hunt, after all, and it wasn't like Dean could just let him sit here and bawl while he did all the work. Besides, hunting without backup was always a stupid idea. He needed Cas to pull himself together, so he had to get those shadows out of Cas' eyes, stop him from imagining whatever dark images he was seeing in his head.

 _Gotta wipe the Princess' tears away,_ he grumbled to himself, but there was no genuine snark in the thought, just a kind of dismayed, confused affection. He really didn't like seeing Cas upset. It distressed him on some level that was so deeply buried he didn't even like thinking about it.

He lifted his other hand, the one that wasn't scraped and bleeding, and placed it on the back of Cas' neck, right where the dark hair curled softly at his nape. He only meant to pull the guy to his shoulder and give him a comforting hug, but it didn't quite work out that way. 

The fact that his face happened to turn so that their lips met, he assured himself, was totally not his fault.


	4. Chapter 4

“ _Fuck._ ”

Dean uttered the word in a breathless mutter that sent an inexplicable chill down Cas’ spine. He’d heard the word countless times—hanging around with the Winchester brothers meant learning all sorts of usefully profane words—but he’d never heard it spoken in quite that way before. Dean sounded as if he were speaking through a mouthful of ground glass, hoarse and strangled, almost _suffocated._ Cas couldn’t entirely put a finger on why Dean’s tone should make goosebumps pop up on his skin, but there was no denying it did.

Knowing Dean Winchester as he did, Cas had rather expected the other man to jerk his head back with an expression of disgust, and perhaps a muffled curse or two, the instant their lips touched. But instead, he’d felt Dean’s callused fingers tighten at the nape of his neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss. And the curse words Dean was whispering didn’t sound disgusted. They sounded… well, _prayerful,_ actually.

Despite everything that had happened between them, Cas didn’t mind continuing the kiss. Dean’s lips, he found, were unexpectedly soft and gentle, and he felt no desire to pull away. Unlike Dean, he had no preconceived notions about his own sexuality. Angels were neither male nor female, and there was no such thing as angelic sexual intercourse (the mingling of grace was the nearest equivalent, but that experience had been more warmly pleasant than ecstatic). His vessel had been a heterosexual male, but Cas had discovered that as a human, he liked to look at male and female attributes more or less equally. Mammary glands attracted his attention, but so did a well-designed set of male gluteal muscles—and Dean, he had noticed, had particularly nice glutes. 

Dean, on the other hand, thought of himself as firmly, unquestionably, unwaveringly heterosexual. Cas had long held doubts about the correctness of Dean’s belief, because as a former angel, he knew more about the human operating system than humans themselves did, and he was well aware that most humans were more flexible, sexually speaking, than they supposed themselves to be. But if Dean preferred to think of himself as 100% heterosexual, Cas wasn’t going to argue with him. It wasn’t his business to question anyone else’s sexual practices. 

But for someone who was supposedly unswervingly heterosexual, Dean was certainly kissing the hell out of him right now. Cas’ sexual experience was limited, but he was reasonably certain that heterosexual males did not usually kiss one another so roughly that their lips parted involuntarily. Nor did they slip their tongues into each other’s mouths while moaning very softly in the depths of their throats, or rake their hands through each other’s hair with desperate affection, or tremble when another male tenderly cupped their cheek. 

But Dean was doing all these things, which Cas found mildly confusing, but not particularly distressing. He remembered, in a vague, fuzzy sort of way, that he had been upset over Dean’s injury, an injury that he no longer had the capability to heal. And before that, he remembered, he’d been very angry indeed with Dean, with firm intentions of never speaking to the man again, once they were through investigating this situation.

But… well, they weren’t speaking. They _definitely_ weren’t speaking. So it was all right.

He was surprised to discover that he had wrapped an arm around Dean’s neck, and despite the fact that they were awkwardly kneeling on a curb in a smelly alley, he was doing his best to climb into the other man’s lap. It was hardly the most dignified situation he’d ever found himself in, but he couldn’t bring himself to care all that much.

The touch of Dean’s mouth against his made him feel strangely out of control of his own body.

And even more strangely, he couldn’t bring himself to mind.

Their tongues stroked and caressed and danced, sending ripples of pleasure down Cas’ spine, making something deep inside him ache with a terrible yearning. Not long after he’d lost his grace, he’d had sex with a nice young woman, April, who’d offered him food and shelter (to his dismay, she’d turned out to be a not-nice-at-all reaper who just wanted to use him and kill him). Despite the unfortunate way the situation had played out, he’d found he liked sex pretty well, but he couldn’t quite see why humans made all that fuss about it. It had been pleasant enough, admittedly, but far from the earthshattering ecstasy he’d gathered it was supposed to be. It had somehow been missing something.

He realized now that what it had been missing… was Dean.

Kissing Dean was peculiarly intense. Cas couldn’t seem to draw enough air into his lungs, his heart thudded a rapid drumbeat in his chest, and his head spun in dizzy confusion. Kissing April had been like being brushed by a gentle breeze. Kissing Dean was like being buffeted by a hurricane. He couldn't seem to keep his footing, emotionally speaking. He didn't _want_ to.

He heard a low growling sound, and realized that this time, he was the one moaning. His hand moved around Dean, finding his chest and stroking downward without any input from his brain. Dean stiffened.

“Fuck,” he muttered again, and then Cas felt him pulling away. “Cas,” he mumbled. “We can’t… we can’t do this.”

In his head, Cas heard Dean’s voice saying, _You can’t stay,_ and abruptly all his rage came crashing back. This time his anger was all tangled up with lust, and he wondered again how humans managed to feel so many contradictory emotions at once without exploding. His head whirled with a stormfront so fierce that he could feel a headache coming on, as if his emotions were pressing outward against his skull.

He forced his eyes open, drew his head back, and glared at Dean. “You mean,” he growled, “that you don’t _want_ to do this.”

“No. I just mean— _fuck._ ” Dean didn’t seem able to explain himself coherently. Cas observed with a kind of detached, angry amusement that he was stammering in an uncharacteristically flustered way. “It’s an alley, dude. People are walking around right out there on the main road, you know? And besides, there’s a dumpster like ten feet away, and it… it kinda smells… this just isn’t the right place…”

Cas felt himself practically snarling with fury. His earlier concern over Dean’s injury had fled, and in its place, something angry, something _ugly,_ sizzled at the back of his mind. He didn’t need reminding that he wasn’t good enough for Dean, damn it. The other man had made that quite clear enough already.

He wanted to strike out at his erstwhile friend with fists, words, any weapon that came to hand. But somehow he curbed his angry impulses. He moved away from Dean (he was embarrassed to discover that he’d actually wound up in Dean’s lap somehow) and rose to his feet. His legs were shaky, but he did his best to hide the reaction. He was damned if he'd let Dean know he'd affected him in the slightest.

“Come on,” he said, glaring down on the other man as coldly as he could manage. “We have a job to do.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Shit.”

Dean ground his teeth together as Cas poured alcohol over his scraped palm. Despite the fact that Cas was clearly pissed off at him, he’d insisted on cleaning and bandaging Dean’s injury. Dean hadn’t argued, because it was obvious that people were unlikely to let him into their houses or offices to interview them if he was bleeding all over the place.

But shit, it stung like a sonofabitch. And Cas was enjoying his pain. He could tell.

Cas took one of the bandages from the emergency kit Dean kept in his baby’s trunk, and wrapped up his hand with a surprising competency, considering that he’d always been able to fix injuries in a more unearthly manner. Clearly he’d learned some practical skills since he’d been a human. The bandage remained pristine and white, making it clear that the scrape wasn’t bleeding much anymore. It hadn’t been a big deal, despite Cas’ near-hysterics over it.

Cas was totally over his hysteria now. He looked as cold and remote as he’d ever looked as an angel. And that made Dean feel like crap, because he hadn’t meant to make things worse between them, damn it. He’d just been trying to… well…

Damn it, he wasn’t sure _what_ he’d been trying to do.

Make a connection with Cas, maybe, he thought as they walked together toward the main road. He’d missed Cas these last few weeks. He’d missed him a hell of a lot. So maybe it wasn’t all that surprising that when he’d finally seen Cas again, he’d sort of…

_Stuck his tongue down Cas’ throat._

…let his happiness at seeing his best friend get a bit out of hand. It wasn’t a gay thing; it was just a really, really intense friendship thing. He and Cas had always been close, after all. He’d just gotten a little…

_Hard and throbbing and ready to do Cas right there in the alley._

…out of control, that was all. But it wouldn’t happen again, not now that he’d gotten all that emotional, girly crap out of his system. Because he was totally in control of himself now, and there was absolutely no chance that he was going to…

_Take the next chance he got to screw Cas’ brains out._

…overreact again. He was back in charge of himself now, damn it. 

They went up the stairs together, and Dean reached out and rang the doorbell. 

*****

The interview was difficult. They’d decided to be “reporters” from a nearby newspaper rather than FBI agents, and they were talking to the woman whose child was missing. He was ten years old, and apparently he’d just disappeared from the local park. The woman shed tears, quite copiously, but couldn’t tell them much. She hadn’t been there when her son had gone missing, so she had no leads to offer, but she begged them to publicize the matter as much as possible, in the hopes that her baby boy would be returned to her.

Dean kind of sucked at the whole sympathy thing—that was usually Sam’s gig, not his—but Cas spoke gently to the woman, calming her and comforting her in his low, kind voice. Dean took her moments of distraction to look around. There was a big gold-framed picture of Jesus (the white, blond version) over the couch, and crosses and Bibles scattered here and there. So they were a religious family, but that didn’t necessarily tell him anything, unless…

Unless.

His gaze riveted on a large photo showing a guy with a big, cheesy smile. He knew that cheesy smile, damn it. It was plastered on the face of the Reverend Buddy Boyle, the televangelist who’d been convincing people to turn themselves over to the fallen angels as vessels.

Unfortunately for Buddy’s followers, the vessel process didn’t always go smoothly. Some humans couldn’t contain an angel’s grace, and they wound up a burnt-out shell. Some of them even exploded. He remembered the spattered remains of one would-be angel vessel he and Sam had come across last week, and had to swallow against his reflexive response to the memory. He’d seen a lot of gross shit in his life, and it took a lot to make him feel sick… but those remains had been gut-wrenchingly horrible.

“So… the Reverend Boyle,” he said into the first break in the conversation, nodding at the picture. “I heard him give a sermon last year in Texas. He’s awesome.”

Her face lit up through her tears. “Isn’t he, though? We saw him at a revival last week.”

“No kidding. Here in town?”

“A tent just outside of town. Just like an old-time revival. Three days.” She sniffed, and more tears overflowed. “Davey and I went together every day… we had so much fun…”

 _Uh-huh, sure,_ Dean thought. _I just bet a ten-year-old kid was thrilled to attend a freakin’ revival._ And for _three days?_ Who the fuck could put up with preaching and praying and singing hymns for three days running? Maybe the kid had run off to avoid being preached at.

But he knew that wasn’t the case. Damn it, he _knew._ Given the patterns he and Sam had already observed, he now had a pretty good idea what had happened to Davey. Some angel had possessed him… and either his meatsuit had a new driver, or it hadn’t survived the change.

Either way, the odds were that Davey was never coming home to his mother.

 _Angels,_ he thought fiercely. _They’re all dicks._ Not that he could totally blame the angels in this situation. They’d all been cast out of Heaven and thrown to earth, badly injured and with their grace and wings in tatters. Trapped here on earth, hurled out of the only home they'd ever known, they didn’t have much choice but to find vessels.

But still, a ten-year-old kid. 

_Dicks._

He shifted his gaze back to the grieving woman, and as he did he thought he saw a blue flash of light in her eyes, just for a second. Couldn't be a glint of sunshine through the window, because her eyes weren't blue-- they were brown. A chill ran down his spine, because he’d seen that same flash before.

In his brother’s eyes. Not all the time, but every now and then, since the day he’d allowed Ezekiel to possess Sam’s body in order to save his brother's life.

He was too much of a pro to panic and flee. He politely ended the interview, telling her that he hoped she’d get her boy back, and that he’d keep her in his prayers (as if God gave two fucks about what happened in the world--but having told her he admired the Reverend Cheesy Grin he figured those were words she expected to hear). He accepted a photo of Davey from her and promised to get the imaginary article onto the imaginary front page if at all possible. He could have sworn he saw maternal love and hope in her eyes, and began to think maybe he’d imagined that bright blue flash.

But as she walked him and Cas to the front door, he saw something beneath a table that sent another, colder chill down his spine.

A feather. A tattered, burnt feather. He remembered the shadows he'd seen of Ezekiel's wings, the few torn and shredded feathers that were still clinging to him, and his heart sank.

Damn it. Angels.

_Dicks._

*****

“I think she’s an angel,” Dean blurted out as he and Cas got into the Impala.

Cas tilted his head, looking over at him with surprise. “An angel? Are you certain? I gathered that her son might have been used as a vessel, but she seemed quite human, and genuinely distraught.”

“Yeah, she did. But I saw a kind of gleam in her eyes once, and there was a burnt feather under a table in the entrance hall…”

Cas considered his words as the black car began to roll. “It is possible, I suppose. But angels rarely are able to pass convincingly as human. We – they—are not the best actors.”

Dean felt a lump in his throat at Cas' excluding himself from the angels, but he ignored his sympathetic reaction. “What if a human and an angel were, I don’t know, sharing the body?”

“Sharing it?” Cas echoed.

“As in, the human is in control of the body sometimes. Or even most of the time. Maybe we were actually talking to the human, and the angel was just kind of watching…” He remembered that spooky blue flash, and had to hold back a shudder. Zeke had the same effect on him. He'd helped save Sammy, and Dean ought to be grateful, but every time Zeke took over Sammy, even for a moment, Dean was seriously creeped out.

Cas looked confused. “That is not how possession works, Dean. You know that. Once the angel takes possession, the angel is in charge of the body at all times.”

“You sure about that? Because she seemed like the genuine article to me, but I’m pretty damn sure there was an angel in there somewhere.”

“Dean…” Cas sighed, leaning his head back. “When an angel possesses a human, as I possessed Jimmy, the original occupant has to be… well, contained, for lack of a better term."

"Caged, you mean."

"You could call it that. There can be a vague sort of communication between the vessel and the new occupant, but no angel would give the vessel…”

“Driving privileges?”

“Exactly. No angel would permit that. An angel could not perform its duties on this plane if it were constantly arguing with its vessel.”

“But these aren’t regular angels,” Dean persisted. “They were thrown out of Heaven, and now they’re hurt. Damaged. Maybe they kind of need a…”

“A symbiotic relationship?” Cas frowned. “It’s an interesting notion, Dean. I suppose it's possible that the more badly damaged angels might not be strong enough to control the vessel at all times."

"And if they're injured that badly-- well, souls are a power source, right?"

"A tremendous one. You remember how I was transformed when I absorbed all those souls—"

“But that was like fifty thousand of them, Cas.”

“Those were disembodied, and damaged from their time in Purgatory. A healthy soul tied into a living body is a vast source of power, far more powerful than any single soul I absorbed. But Dean... when angels take over a body, they don't tap into the soul's power.”

“You sure?”

“I've never heard of such a thing,” Cas said slowly, as if thinking about the matter carefully. “I’m not even sure how it could be done. When we take a vessel, the original host is simply shunted to the side—to its container. Its cage, if you prefer that term. I’m honestly not sure how an angel could truly share a vessel with the original host. I’m not sure it’s possible.”

“You took all those souls into you.”

“By absorbing them. But they weren't part of my vessel. An angel doesn’t absorb its vessel’s soul, or consume it the way Famine does. It just… pushes it aside.”

“And there isn’t like any, you know, spiritual radiation you can absorb, or anything?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

Dean frowned, because he knew damn well it was possible for a host and an angel to share a human body, but he could hardly tell Cas that. The thought that Ezekiel might somehow be hungrily devouring the energy from Sam's soul like a heavenly leech made him feel sick inside. Ezekiel had said, _I heal Sam while healing myself,_ and that was fair enough, Dean supposed. But if Zeke could somehow draw on the tremendous power source that was Sam's soul, was he ever going to leave? And how fucking powerful might an angel powered by both grace and a human soul become?

He pushed his concerns aside for now. He hadn't been sure enough that the woman was an angel to gank her, but if she was, they had other issues to deal with right now. “Well, okay. The problem is, if that woman was an angel—or had an angelic passenger in her head—she might have alerted other angels in the area that we’re here. I figure they all know us on sight, no matter what names we use. You heard anything about us on angel radio?”

Cas heaved a long, unhappy sigh. “I have no idea what the angels might be saying," he admitted. "I can still hear angel radio, but it no longer makes any real sense to me. I hear it more as an irritating background noise, like static, than any sort of coherent conversation.”

Dean’s heart twisted at Cas’ tragic tone. “What, you don’t understand Enochian anymore?”

“It’s not that. It’s more that angels are on a different.. well, speed, I suppose. Different time rates. Their minds process information much faster than human minds do. I can hear the sound of their voices in my head, but… well, it’s simply spoken too fast for me to make any sense of it.”

Dean drove along for a moment in silence. At last he said, “Cas, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Cas’ voice was bitter. “It’s mine.”

“Still. I’m sorry that you lost your grace, and ended up here, among the mud monkeys. It’s gotta suck giant hairy donkey balls.”

Cas seemed to be turning that expression over in his head. He looked mildly revolted. “Actually,” he said at last, “I would have wound up here among the 'mud monkeys,' as you put it, even if Metatron hadn't interfered."

"What?" Dean glanced at him. "You told me you were going to close up Heaven for good. Send all the angels back home, and shutter the Pearly Gates."

"Dean..." Cas sighed. "Did you really suppose I intended to be on the far side of those gates?"

Dean's mouth fell open, because yeah, that was exactly what he had supposed. On their last night together, he'd said, _So this is it. ET goes home,_ and Cas hadn't argued it.

But of course Cas never told him a goddamn thing.

"You were planning... to... stay," he said, very cautiously, in case he'd misunderstood. "Here on Earth. Shut out of Heaven forever."

Cas nodded, looking faintly abashed. A slight smile lifted the corner of his mouth.

"Embarrassing though it may be to admit," he said, his voice wry, "I found that I couldn't say goodbye to my mud monkeys."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medical stuff got in the way yesterday, but there will be two updates today. Thanks for your patience, and for all the kind feedback so far!

“We need to get you out of here, Cas.”

Cas bristled at the authoritative tone in Dean’s voice. He might be brand-new as a human, but he was millennia old as an angel, and he took strong exception to Dean’s attempts to… what was the phrase?... “boss him around.” It had always seemed to him quite obvious that the ancient, wise, knowledgeable being should be in charge, rather than the rash, impulsive human who had existed for less than the blink of an angel’s eye. But he’d never managed to convince Dean of that.

“There do seem to be a lot of angels in the area,” he admitted. “But there is no reason to suppose they are after me.”

“Cas. Come on.” Dean gripped the wheel of the Impala tightly, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “The second person we interviewed today had the same damn blue-eyed flash as the first one did. And then when we were walking back to the car…”

Cas nodded. He’d seen it too, a brief cobalt flash in the eyes of numerous people who’d walked past them on the street. Twenty or more people, now vessels for angels.

“Creepy as hell,” Dean muttered.

“Yes,” Cas said in his most reasonable tone, “but they may not be after me. Not a single one of them tried to attack us, after all.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Dean’s voice rose. “It’s not a coincidence that a freakin' battalion of angels have moved into the town where you’ve been living. It can’t be.”

“Perhaps not. But I never spotted them before today, which suggests they may be more interested in you than in me. And if their intent was to harm me, they could have done it long before now…”

“Look, I don’t know what they’re up to, but they’re up to _something_. We’re going to get you the hell out of here before they change their minds and come after you. And I gotta say I don’t particularly want a bunch of angry angels on _my_ ass, either. You got that Enochian tattoo, and I’m still marked on my ribs, so once we hit the road they can’t find us—”

“If they are in fact here because of me,” Cas pointed out, “then they clearly _can_ find me.”

Dean got his stubborn _don’t come at me with your goddamn logic_ face. “I’m not taking you back to your apartment, not even for a change of clothes,” he insisted. “They might have it under surveillance or something. It’s like they’ve taken over the whole damn town. I’ve never seen anything like it, man. We’re gonna get the hell out of here and find a motel room a long ways away, and ward the shit out of it. And then tomorrow…”

Cas had the distinct impression Dean had been about to say _we’ll get you back to the bunker,_ but he broke off, grinding his teeth together audibly. 

“We’ll figure out what we should do next,” he finished.

“In the meantime, people are vanishing.”

“Vessels that don’t make the cut, I figure. I’m not happy about that, believe me. I’ve seen bodies that've been exploded by too much angel, and it’s not a pretty sight. But there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it tonight, unless you think we can mow down a fucking _army_ with two lousy blades.”

“I have a job, Dean. Nora will expect me to show up in the morning.”

“Sure, Cas. You can sell gas and burritos to all your friendly neighborhood angels. Maybe if you provide service with a smile, they’ll let you live. You sure you want to bet your hide on that?”

Cas growled, very softly. He didn’t appreciate the sarcastic edge in Dean’s voice. Besides, Nora was his friend as well as his employer, and he didn't like the idea of leaving her in danger while the two of them fled. “So your solution is to run away.”

It was Dean’s turn to bristle. He spoke through bared teeth. “Only fools rush in where angels tread, dude."

"That is not the correct quotation."

"It's the _truth,_ damn it. Look, Cas..." He made a visible effort to get himself under control, and lowered his voice. "I just think we need to fall back and regroup. Do some more research. We're in way over our heads here, and we need to figure out what the hell is going on in this town before we try to deal with it. So I say we get the hell out of Dodge for the night.”

“Isn’t that rather cowardly?”

He was pricking Dean deliberately, trying to antagonize the other man, and that knowledge made him a bit ashamed of himself. But he was still pissed off at Dean. He couldn't help it.

He was only human, after all. 

“I’m not gonna let them kill you,” Dean said between his teeth. “I won’t lose you again, Cas. I _won’t,_ damn it.”

The mingled rage and pain in Dean’s voice warmed Cas, pushing away his lingering anger. It was difficult to argue when he knew Dean was just trying to keep him safe. And there was no denying that there was something very strange going on here. He subsided, and gazed out the window. The streets of the town seemed perfectly ordinary, with humans going about their daily business, and nothing to suggest that the place was swarming with angels. 

He tried to focus on the white noise in his head, the static that had once been the chiming, musical voices of angels, but which now was only an irritation. It sounded, he thought, a bit louder than usual, but surely if angels were massing in one place for some nefarious purpose their voices would be far louder, almost impossible to ignore...

The sun was beginning to set as the Impala left the town limits. Nothing tried to stop them, and Cas saw Dean’s fingers relax a bit on the steering wheel. The car rolled smoothly drove down winding back roads for two hours, the night settling in around them like a blanket, Bad Company and Kansas and Journey playing softly. The two of them listened to music, and didn't speak much.

The silence that had fallen, Cas decided, was a pleasant one. A comfortable one.

Despite everything that had happened between them, being with Dean this way, riding alongside him in the Impala as the car drove through the night, felt oddly right.

*****

Cas had argued for separate motel rooms, but to no avail. Dean was in full-on protective mode, and he wasn’t about to let Cas out of his sight. The motel they picked was shabby but clean, and Dean promptly angel-proofed by scrawling anti-angel sigils all over the walls of their small room.

When the place was warded to his satisfaction, he took off his suit jacket and hung it over a chair, then threw himself down on one of the double beds and flicked the TV on. Cas stood there, feeling awkward. For some reason, being in such close proximity to Dean made him feel much more uncomfortable than it had when he was an angel. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said. He was conscious of his own all-too-human odor. Humans were, of course, among of the most beautiful artworks in all of Creation, more intricately carved than the finest marble statue, more beautifully detailed than any Renaissance painting, more complex than a Beethoven symphony, but… well, they smelled. Cas was no exception to this unfortunate rule. He’d been wearing a suit most of the afternoon, and he was sweaty and hot. He didn’t care for either the odor that rose from him, or the tacky sensation of dried perspiration on his skin.

Dean waved a vague hand at him, his gaze on the television, as if he didn’t care what Cas did now that they were safe. But Cas had been watching Dean Winchester for a long time, and he knew every nuance of his body language. The last word had made his muscles stiffen uncomfortably. For some reason, the thought of Cas showering made Dean extremely tense.

Interesting.

Cas ducked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and indulged in a long and blissful hot shower. Bathing was one of his favorite human pastimes. To him it was a delightful novelty, as there had been no equivalent to it in Heaven. Since Heaven was perfect, nothing could ever get dirty there, and thus there was never a need for cleaning oneself.

And yet paradoxically, he had discovered that showering could be a near-heavenly experience.

He scrubbed his skin and his hair thoroughly, washing the grime of the day away. The motel shampoo and shower gel were cheap, with a strong citrusy smell that stung his nose a little, but he still preferred it to his body’s natural odor. Despite the hot water beating down on his bare skin, he was aware of a certain tension in the muscles beneath his soap-slick skin, not to mention his half-erect penis and an ache deep in his testicles, and he correctly diagnosed the problem as an excess of sexual energy. 

It was a common enough problem for humans, and early on in his mortal existence, he had discovered that one of the best places to discharge unwanted sexual need was the shower. He had quickly learned how to manipulate his own body to good effect, and very much enjoyed the warm rush of pleasure it provided. 

But tonight… no. He wasn't exactly sure what he wanted, but that wasn't it.

He got out of the shower and dried himself off with a white, fluffy towel, feeling all his nerves shimmering with an odd, inexplicable sort of anticipation. His body seemed to surge with life and power, a low thrum of awareness singing just beneath the skin, his heart pounding out a steady drumbeat. Glancing with distaste at the pile of fabric he’d stripped off, he decided he wasn't putting on dirty clothes over clean skin. He slung the towel around his hips, wrapping it deliberately, almost insolently, low, and opened the bathroom door.

Dean glanced up automatically as the door swung open, and then shied back. “Dude! Put some clothes on!”

“My clothes are all dirty,” Cas responded, walking toward him. “I have no clean ones.”

“Well, you can borrow some of mine. Seriously, buddy, cover _up._ ”

Cas glanced down at himself. Dean was reacting as if he were walking around stark naked, but he was, he thought, adequately figleafed. The dark trail of hair beneath his navel was visible, but he’d wrapped the towel so as to conceal the denser hair of his pubic region. Barely.

“I’m comfortable this way,” he said, and turned to sit down on his own bed, presenting his back and shoulders to Dean. Dean suddenly abandoned all pretense of interest in the television and sat up with a jerk, staring. Cas heard his sharp intake of breath.

“Cas. Your back.”

Cas knew what he was looking at. All his muscles went taut, and the pleasant hum of sensual awareness that had filled his body was suddenly buried beneath a landslide of uncomfortable tension. He stared down at the worn carpet, unable to meet Dean’s gaze, for fear that he might see pity there, or worse, amusement.

“I had it done just a few days after I became human,” he said, very softly. “Right after I left the bunker. I know it’s silly, but… well, I felt naked.”

“They’re beautiful,” Dean breathed, and Cas heard nothing but approval in his voice. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and saw Dean staring at the tattooed wings on his back with something almost like awe. “Is that what they really looked like?”

“I drew the design for the tattoo artist,” Cas answered, a little self-consciously. “I seem to have retained some artistic ability. The representation is not perfect, because it is only a two-dimensional depiction of that which was four-dimensional. But… well, if you had been able to see them, they would have looked much like this. Only a great deal larger, of course.”

The TV flickered off, and he heard Dean’s bed creak, heard the soft brush of Dean’s bare feet against the carpet, and felt his own bed dip as Dean’s considerable weight settled behind him. His anxious tension dissipated, and that joyful sensation of life and energy sang through him again, causing his heart to pound heavily.

And then Dean reached out and placed a gentle hand on his back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've taken a few liberties here with the events of 8.23. Also, the idea that fallen Cas would want wings tattooed on his back is of course completely unoriginal. I've seen lots of artwork showing tattooed!Cas, and I'm sure there are plenty of stories, too. But I couldn't think of any other way to indulge my love for wing!kink.

Cas’ skin felt moist and warm from the shower, and Dean couldn’t seem to help touching him. He let his fingers trail down one of the wings tattooed onto Cas’ back. They covered him from the curve of his shoulders to the bottom of his ribcage. _That had to smart like hell,_ he thought. But it was undeniably the most beautiful work of art he’d ever seen on a human body.

Though maybe it was simply that Cas himself was a damned beautiful work of art.

The wings etched into Cas’ skin were dark, like a raven’s wing, with blue and green and purple highlights, so that they conveyed an impression of iridescence, of the aurora borealis and rainbows and stars all wrapped up in the endless black of night. They looked as if they were folded against his back, but somehow appeared ready to spread out and take flight instantly. It was the damnedest thing Dean had ever seen, and he couldn’t seem to pull his hand away. 

“They healed well,” he said, hearing the gruffness in his own voice.

“They healed much more quickly than they should have,” Cas said. His voice was deeper than usual, a low, sexy rumble. “I no longer have any grace, but I seem to have retained some healing abilities. Not miraculous ones, just minor things like cuts healing faster than is usual for humans, or bruises fading quickly.” He laughed softly, a sound that made Dean’s heart lift unexpectedly. He’d rarely heard Cas laugh as an angel. “I sliced the hell out of my face the first time I shaved. But by the next day I looked fine.”

"Wish I could say the same," Dean said dryly, flexing his bandaged hand. He'd given up the fight to stop touching the inked feathers on his back, and was letting his hands roam freely. The fact that it was inappropriate to be touching a friend this way didn’t even occur to him. “How big were they?”

“My real wings?” Cas hesitated, seeming to ponder the matter. “That’s a rather complex question. My wings were part of my true form.”

“Which was the size of the Chrysler building, right?”

“Yes and no. I was not a physical being in any sense you would understand, so attempting to accurately describe my form in a physical way is impossible. I could be massive, yes, but I could also be the size of a hummingbird if I so chose. I was not bound by the physical laws of this world, and thus my mass was not a constant. In any event, you could not have seen my wings. Any glimpse of my true form would have damaged you badly, and that included my wings.”

“I saw their shadow.”

“That was merely a… representation. My wings were so much more than that. It is difficult to explain, because they were beyond human understanding.” 

Dean sighed. “I know it sounds stupid,” he admitted, “but I always kind of wanted to… touch them. The idea of you having these enormous wings… I dunno, man. It just sounded really badass.”

“They are gone now,” Cas said, and his voice ached with sorrow.

Dean cursed, very softly but very sincerely, under his breath, his hands still stroking over the inked feathers. The left palm was still bandaged, but that didn't stop him from exploring with his fingers. “I’m sorry, Cas. I really am.”

“Yes. So am I.” Cas’ muscles flexed beneath Dean’s questing hands, and his head dropped back slightly, as if he was enjoying the sensation of Dean’s touch. The languid movement was unmistakably sensual, and all of a sudden alarm bells went off in Dean’s brain. 

He was touching a guy.

Touching. A. Guy.

Not just touching. Stroking. Caressing. Fondling. 

No matter what word he used, it still sounded gay, damn it. He wasn’t comfortable with a single damn one of those synonyms, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop. Because yeah, he’d thought about touching Cas’ wings like a million times, impossible though it might have been. And now—and now—

Despite himself, his hands slipped down along the inked wings, and Cas shuddered.

“Sorry,” Dean muttered. “I guess it still kinda hurts, huh?”

“No.” Cas sounded as if he could hardly get words out. “Just… sensitive.”

“Because of the tats?”

“Because… of losing… my wings.”

The way Cas gasped the words out, like Dean's questing hands were bringing him so much pleasure he'd lost the ability to talk, made something inside Dean coil and twist. It was almost like he was getting, well, hard.

God, was he actually getting _turned on_ here? What the fuck?

And then he processed what Cas had said, and sympathy curled inside him along with everything else. “Did it hurt?” he whispered. “Losing your grace, I mean?”

Cas nodded jerkily. “It hurt,” he answered, very softly. “It hurt terribly. He pinned me down… like a butterfly… tore it from me… ripped my wings off…”

Dean winced. Something stung his eyes, and he closed his eyelids and lowered his head, brushing a kiss over Cas’ shoulder without even thinking about it. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “So sorry.”

At the touch of his lips, Cas jolted, and a low moan rose from him. Dean was forcibly reminded of the two of them climbing all over each other in the alley, the way Cas had trembled against him, the little noises the other man had made deep in his throat…

Jesus. He needed to stop this, right now. 

And he was going to. He absolutely was.

Just as soon as he brushed a kiss over Cas’ other shoulder.

But he found that it was impossible to stop there. Cas seemed so vulnerable, so fragile. So naked. Not just physically (though Dean was far from oblivious to all that bare skin, no matter how much he tried to ignore it), but emotionally too. He'd had his essence ripped from him, then been cast, bleeding and helpless, into this world. His brethren were hunting him like an animal, he'd had sex with a woman who'd promptly turned around and killed him, and then his supposed best friend had kicked him out so he had no one to protect him, no one standing at his side, nothing to hang onto.

 _Damn it,_ he thought with a stab of self-loathing. At least for tonight, he could give Cas something to hang onto. Some _one_ to hang onto.

He kept on kissing Cas' decorated skin, gentle kisses full of a deep, warm affection he couldn't hide, that he didn't even _try_ to hide, and with every touch of his lips, Cas moaned and shuddered and acted like it was the most incredible fucking thing he’d ever felt. He was just kissing the guy’s shoulder blades, but Cas was carrying on like he was giving him a blowjob or something. Which, he assured himself mentally, he would never ever even think about doing, because that would be totally gay.

This wasn’t gay. It was just…

Well, it was exciting as hell, was what it was. He couldn’t deny that. But it also made his throat ache when he let himself think about just _why_ Cas’ back was so sensitive.

_Pinned me down… like a butterfly… ripped my wings off…_

It must have hurt like a sonofabitch for Cas to endure this much tattooing right over his wounds, over flesh that was invisibly but very genuinely damaged, and yet he’d missed his wings so much that he’d suffered through it, just for a small reminder of what he’d once been.

 _Goddamn angels,_ Dean thought with a white-hot surge of fury. _Goddamn Metatron._ Cas was his angel, _his,_ damn it, and the knowledge that the scribe angel had done this to his friend, torn his essence from him, left him broken and scarred—even if the scars didn’t show to human eyes—made him want to stride right into Heaven and gank the bastard.

Cas uttered a small, pitiful sound that could have been a noise of pleasure or sorrow, or both, and Dean's heart melted.

_Cas. Oh, Cas._

He wrapped his arms around his angel as if he could protect him from the world, from all the evils of Heaven and Hell and Purgatory, and ran his lips all over the wings etched into his back. He drew in a deep breath, inhaling the orange-and-lemon scent of shower gel, and beneath it, the impossibly sweet scent of Cas’ skin. His tongue slipped out and began tracing the inked feathers, one by one, and Cas jerked violently and cried out his name.

Jesus. He couldn’t sit up anymore. He felt himself collapsing into a puddle of need and—God help him—desire. He paused long enough to roughly unbutton his shirt and throw it aside, and then he pressed his bare chest against Cas’ back, wrapped his arms around him again, and fell onto his side, pulling Cas along with him. The towel came loose somewhere in the process, leaving Cas totally naked in his arms.

Their bodies aligned perfectly, Cas’ back against his front, and Dean felt the overwhelming urge to press his hips against Cas’ bare, beautiful ass. But even with his pants on, that was way gayer than he was comfortable with. He told his hips to chill out and shut the hell up, and drew back just far enough that he could continue lavishing kisses over Cas’ shoulders. He struggled to ignore the fact that he was harder than he'd ever been in his life.

Damn it, all he really wanted here was to make Cas feel good. Cas had been through so much, through crap Dean couldn’t even imagine, disfigurement and torture and betrayal and the loss of what had made him what he was. And then he’d been thrown out of two homes, left without a friend to turn to, hunted like an animal.

And part of that was his fault. He himself had hurt Cas. Maybe he hadn’t been the one to rip his wings off, but he’d knuckled under to Ezekiel and let his newly human friend be cast out into the wilderness. He wasn’t sure what else he could have done, considering the metaphorical gun pressed to Sammy’s head, but that didn’t make the guilt any easier to bear. Part of what Cas had suffered was because of _him,_ damn it.

There was nothing he could do to fix what he'd done, and he didn't know if Cas would ever forgive him. And maybe Cas _shouldn't_ forgive him. He didn't know. All he knew was that he ached for his friend, and that right now, he desperately wanted to make Cas happy, if only for a few moments. After everything he'd been through, Cas deserved a little simple pleasure.

He hadn't stopped kissing and licking Cas' back, and the former angel was trembling in his arms now, whimpering, sobbing, sounding for all the world like he was knockin’ on Heaven’s door. Dean found it difficult to believe Cas could come simply by having his shoulder blades kissed, but then Cas wasn’t quite like anyone else, and never had been. Dean found what seemed to be a particularly sensitive spot and ran his tongue over it, and Cas quivered all over, keening like the pleasure was killing him.

God, he couldn't take this. Dean loosened his tight grip on the other man, let one of his hands stroke over Cas' chest, teasing the small taut nipples, and let his other hand slide downward. He wasn't gay, damn it, he _wasn't,_ but he couldn't lie here and listen to Cas' frantic whimpers and not-- well, he just couldn't stop himself.

He brushed his unbandaged palm over the head of Cas' cock, which was wet with precome and so freakin' hot it practically burned his hand, and then wrapped his dampened hand around the hard, swollen shaft and began slowly stroking. He used the fingers of his banged-up hand to play with Cas' nipples, teasing and tickling and pinching lightly. His mouth never left Cas' back, and Cas arched in his arms, his hips going wild, thrusting up into Dean's hand and then pressing back against his body, jerking convulsively as he strained for his release.

“Dean.” Cas’ voice was a rough whisper, raw with desperate pleasure and hungry need. “I’m going to—but you—I want you to—"

“This isn’t about me,” Dean murmured against his back, trying to mean it sincerely despite the nearly unbearable ache in his balls. Cas' frantic movements were driving him crazy despite his best intentions, and he'd never been in the habit of denying himself sexual pleasure when he wanted it. “Not tonight. I just want to make you feel good, Cas. That's all.”

“But I can’t—"

“Yeah, you totally can." He moved his hand harder, beginning to pump in a fast, relentless rhythm, and whispered into the other man's ear. "Give it up for me, Cas. Don't fight it. Let yourself have this, okay?”

He lowered his head again, sweeping his tongue over Cas’ tattoo in a rough, sweet caress, and Cas shuddered violently, falling apart in his arms, his body jerking as he came all over Dean's hand and the bed in long, hot spurts. Cas uttered a long, wordless wail of pleasure, shaking helplessly, and then he slowly relaxed into Dean’s arms, panting and shivering. The earthy scent of come mingled with the citrusy scent of Cas' heated skin, filling Dean's head, making him dizzy, _drunk_ , with an intense longing he'd never felt before. 

Dean wasn't used to having another guy's jizz on his hand, but he found that he didn't care all that much. His own cock was still throbbing urgently, but he ignored it. He held the former angel close, soothing him, cuddling him, whispering soft words to him— _I’m here, Cas, I’m here, I have you, I won’t let go, I promise_ \-- and before long Cas relaxed against him utterly, boneless, replete. 

Moments later he was softly snoring in Dean's arms.


	8. Chapter 8

Cas awakened with a violent jerk. Darkness surrounded him, deep, impenetrable, adding to the feeling of panic that had gripped him. He was aware of his heart thundering in his chest, could hear the harsh sound of his own heavy breathing. A soft whimper, a muffled sound of sheer terror, escaped him.

“Hey.” The voice was thick and slurred, and it came from right next to his ear. “You okay, Cas?”

 _Dean._ Cas reached out blindly, groping in the darkness, and found the other man sprawled next to him. He was still shirtless, and his bare back felt warm and solid and strong, smooth satin skin over muscle and bone. He felt _alive._ Cas clutched at him, desperate to anchor himself to something real.

“Bad dream,” he mumbled. 

“S’all right.” Dean was face down in the pillow, but now he turned toward Cas and wrapped his arms around him, pulling Cas against him sleepily. “Everyone has 'em.”

Cas buried his face in the warm expanse of Dean’s chest, breathing in the scent of him. Dean had apparently taken a shower after Cas fell asleep, because he smelled of the orange-and-lemon soap, but he smelled of something else as well, something potent and masculine, something uniquely Dean. “I have them all the time,” he muttered indistinctly. “Ev'ry night. Hate them.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s hand reached up to stroke his hair reassuringly, as if Cas were a child. “Guess that’s to be expected when everything’s so new to you. Sucks, though.”

The feel of the big, competent hand in his hair was strangely comforting, and Cas burrowed his way deeper into Dean’s embrace, wrapping his arms around the other man and tangling their legs together. He was aware that he was still shivering with the aftermath of the dream, and he was slightly embarrassed even though he knew it was a normal reaction to nightmares. He didn’t want Dean to think he was a coward.

Dean had pressed his face into Cas’ hair, and his voice was blurry with sleep. “What’d you dream about?” 

“Alone,” Cas whispered. “Being alone.”

“Shit, Cas.” Dean’s arms tightened around him, so hard it almost hurt, and he spoke in a dark rumble. “S’my fault. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t want to be alone.” He couldn’t explain to a human how he’d never truly been alone before, how the musical voices of his brethren had always echoed in his mind, a great, glorious chorus of beings like himself. Angels were not a hive mind—they were all individuals—and yet they shared their thoughts, their selves, in a way that humans couldn’t comprehend. Dean had always called it “angel radio,” but that term sounded dismissive and small, as if the heavenly music were a mere means of communication, a divine walkie-talkie, when in fact it was so much more. It was a communion, a link, a never-ending symphony that had tied him together with the angels, one among many and many in one. 

And now it was nothing but a buzz of irritating static. The glorious angelic song had been silenced. He was no longer Castiel, angel of the Lord, part of the great Heavenly host. He was only Cas, small and insignificant, pitifully human, and utterly alone in his own head.

And he had found nothing on Earth that might replace the song.

Until now, maybe, he thought, pressing against the strength and warmth of Dean’s body, remembering the way Dean had touched him earlier. But this contact, pleasurable though it was, was fleeting. Eventually Dean would go back to the bunker, back to his family, and leave him all alone once again…

“I’m sorry,” Dean murmured in his hair, holding him, and Cas thought with a touch of bitterness how empty those words were. Dean seemed to mean them, quite sincerely, seemed to be earnestly seeking forgiveness, and yet he’d thrown Cas out of the bunker, and didn’t seem to have any intentions of taking him home again. What good was an apology if the person apologizing didn’t try to atone for his sin? 

“Dean.” He nuzzled the warm skin of Dean’s chest, basking in the comfort of being held, and spoke the question that had hovered on his lips for weeks. “Why did you make me leave?”

“I didn’t want to.”

Cas didn’t doubt the other man’s sincerity. He could hear guilt and pain and sorrow in every syllable. “But you did it anyway. Why would you make me leave, if you wanted me there? I don’t understand, Dean. Help me to understand.”

“I had to.” Dean’s arms were tight around him, his muscles tense with some sort of distress, and his words came in terse, unhappy bursts. “I wouldn’t have, Cas—I swear I wouldn’t have—but he _made_ me—”

Cas frowned at that. _He **made** me._ The words made no sense. He was absolutely certain that Sam had been pleased to see him. He and Sam had become good friends, despite a rocky beginning, and Sam wouldn’t have wanted him to leave. He was confident of that. And Kevin—well, there was no reason for the Prophet of the Lord to have wanted Cas to leave, nor was there the slightest chance that the young man could “make” the older, stronger Dean do anything. 

“Crowley?” he ventured. Crowley was the only other possibility, but since he was currently imprisoned in the bunker dungeon, he couldn’t quite see how the King of Hell could have forced Dean into such an action. 

“No,” Dean muttered. “Forget it… shouldn’t’ve said anything…”

But Cas’ curiosity was piqued. He’d spent weeks simmering in a hot stew of resentment, but now he began to recognize that indulging the all-too-human emotion of anger had blocked his ability to think logically about the situation. When he thought, _really_ thought, about it, he could see that none of this made any sense. Dean, after all, had gone to a great deal of effort to retrieve him. His friend had driven many miles to find him, and he'd seen the unmistakable worry and anger on Dean's features just before the Reaper's sword killed him. After that, Dean had somehow arranged for his resurrection and then avenged him by slaying the Reaper, and had at last brought him home. 

And then, quite abruptly, Dean had informed him he had to go.

He’d been too shocked and hurt, too bewildered, to ask for explanations. Dean had given him the vague impression that he was too dangerous to have around, which was unfortunately not unreasonable, since every fallen angel in creation was after him. But the bunker was probably the safest place on Earth for him to be. Furthermore, if Dean had been that concerned about the danger to them all, he would never have taken Cas to the bunker in the first place.

He played back the events of that night, trying to filter out the anger that had shaded all his memories in a crimson haze. He remembered Dean bending protectively over him, one hand on Cas’ thigh, the other stroking his arm. And then Dean had straightened up, looking like he might cry, and being Dean, had covered his reaction with a stern look and snapped, _Never do that again._

After that Cas had crawled into the back seat of the Impala, and slept most of the way back to the bunker. Dean had brought him inside, looking very pleased and very relieved. Cas had showered and changed, and had happily begun devouring burritos. And then he'd commented in passing that he’d had sex with April…

He blinked, recalling that Dean had kicked him out almost immediately after he’d mentioned that. It had never occurred to him that the simple fact that he’d had sex with April might have distressed the other man, but now that he and Dean had been somewhat intimate, it occurred to him that jealousy was a possible motivator. He didn’t understand the human emotion of jealousy very well, but he had managed to grasp that humans sometimes felt it when a person they desired became involved with someone else, and that it was a destructive emotion akin to anger. Was it possible…?

Almost instantly, he dismissed the thought as absurd. Dean had had numerous sex partners in his lifetime, and wasn’t likely to be angered by any experimentation Cas might have done. Dean knew as well as anyone that sex was sometimes just a pleasurable experience. And in any event, even if Dean had felt some jealousy, he wouldn’t have allowed it to affect him that way. Dean wouldn’t throw anyone out simply because of a petty human emotion like jealousy. His friend was better than that.

So what else had happened? He considered the matter, and recalled that he’d gone into the dining area to have another burrito, while Dean and Sam talked in low voices.

And then Dean had walked over to him, looking very uncomfortable, and said, _You can’t stay._

“Sam,” he breathed, feeling betrayed all over again. He would have sworn that Sam really liked him, that Sam’s friendship was genuine and unshakeable. And yet… the two brothers had spoken, and then Dean had informed him he had to leave. It had to have been Sam. “Sam wanted me to go.”

“No.” Dean sounded worried now, and more awake, as if the conversation was slowly pulling him out of the mists of sleep. “It wasn’t Sam, he’d never… It was just… damn it, Cas. I can’t explain it, okay? I just can’t.”

Cas pressed his face harder against Dean’s chest. “I want to come home,” he whispered. Even to his own ears, he sounded pitiful.

“Yeah, I know, buddy. Nobody wants you home more than I do. But I just… I _can't_...”

Dean’s voice broke, and Cas heard him give a muffled curse. He had the sudden certainty that if he lifted his hand to Dean’s face, he would find tears on his cheeks, and that confused him more than ever. Dean had kissed him, had touched him intimately, and he was clearly distressed about the situation. It now seemed obvious that Dean really did want him at the bunker. He wanted to take Cas home as much as Cas wanted to go with him. 

And yet for some reason, Dean felt he couldn’t take Cas there.

It was baffling.


	9. Chapter 9

Damn it, Dean thought, blinking hard, this was exactly the kind of stupid, embarrassing thing that happened when he got woken up in the middle of the night. If he didn’t get at least four unbroken hours of sleep a night, he turned into a girl. He was probably growing lady parts right now.

He rubbed his cheek against Cas’ hair, as surreptitiously as he could manage, to wipe away the unwanted moisture on his face, and sniffled. His nose was getting all snotty too, damn it. Clearly this wasn’t just a matter of him being uncharacteristically weepy. He must be allergic to something, probably that disgusting citrus shower gel. He could smell it all over both of them, and it was making his eyes water. That was all.

The thought made him feel more manly. He blinked hard, clearing up his allergy problem before Cas got the wrong idea. But there was still plenty here for Cas to get the wrong idea about. The fact that he was wearing nothing but boxer shorts, and that Cas was stark naked and wrapped around him like a starfish wrapped around a clam, was a little unsettling. He wasn’t gay, of course, but… well, the situation kinda was.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, ignoring his body’s reaction to Cas’ warmth pressing up against him. Because yeah, he definitely wasn’t growing _lady_ parts. That much was clear. 

Well, he couldn’t help getting a woody. He’d been kind of ( _excruciatingly_ ) hard earlier, and even though he’d contemplated taking care of the problem in the shower, he’d decided it was best to get clean as fast as possible so he could get back to Cas. Couldn’t leave the guy unguarded for long, after all. Eventually his erection had subsided and he’d fallen asleep, but once he’d awakened to find Cas plastered all over his front…

It wasn’t a big deal ( _who was he kidding, it was pretty damn big already_ ), just a physical reaction to all that body heat. Didn’t mean a damn thing.

And Cas was undeniably hot. His bare skin seemed to be radiating an intense warmth, like the Impala's hood after a long drive. His legs had somehow twined around and through Dean’s, one pressed between Dean’s thighs, the other hooked around his ankle. Their bodies were aligned perfectly, just like before, except instead of his hard-on being pressed up against Cas’ ass, it was pressed up against…

Dean swallowed, and tried really, really hard to think about something else. Anything else.

Cas nuzzled into his chest, burying his face in Dean’s shoulder, pushing a little nearer. He was pretty sure the former angel was just seeking comfort after his nightmare, but he couldn’t possibly get any closer-- not without climbing right inside Dean, anyway. 

He gulped. The thought of Cas inside him actually didn’t help a whole hell of a lot.

His dick twitched, in that unsubtle way dicks had of letting you know they were there, just in case you might’ve forgotten you had one, and he flushed in the darkness, because he knew Cas had to have felt it. Sure enough, Cas froze, going very still for a long moment. 

And then he slowly and deliberately rolled his hips against Dean.

Dean bit down on a groan as a bolt of pleasure shot through him like a bullet. Damn Cas, anyway. He’d just been trying to comfort the guy, but Cas seemed to be under the extremely mistaken impression that Dean wanted to...

Cas’ hips rolled against him again, and Dean’s dick twitched again, because it was stupid and apparently hadn’t gotten the not-gay memo. Despite his best efforts to choke it back, a little sound made its way out of his throat, a whimpering sound that was so pathetic he was embarrassed by it. 

Just like before, he felt the overwhelming urge to shove his hips up against Cas, but he squelched the impulse ruthlessly. The last thing he was going to do was—

Cas did it again, and Dean ground his teeth and shuddered. He could feel that Cas was hard now too, despite the violent way he’d come earlier. Hard and hot and…

Oh, fuck, he thought, what was the big deal, anyway? Cas was obviously getting off on this, and Dean had decided earlier that Cas deserved any pleasure he could give him, after everything he’d been through. If this was what Cas wanted, then this was what he ought to have. It didn’t mean Dean had to get off on it himself, which was just as well, because obviously that wasn’t likely. Coming with a guy’s dick rubbing against his was a little too gay for him. No way was that gonna happen.

But letting Cas come again—that was okay with him. He remembered Cas trembling, coming completely undone in his arms, and he admitted that it was a hell of a lot better than okay. He’d really liked knowing he was the one who'd made Cas feel good, and not some goddamn Reaper who just wanted to torture Cas and kill him. 

Not that he was jealous that Cas had gotten together with someone else first. That was cool. Of course it was. Banging random chicks was exactly what he himself did to blow off steam ( _even if it had been six months or maybe a year for him, he’d kinda lost track somewhere along the line_ ), and it didn’t bother him, not even a little, that Cas had gotten his rocks off with a pretty girl. He was just pissed that the pretty girl had stabbed Cas afterward. But he and Cas were friends, and he was right here, and he owed his friend for everything he'd put him through, and so Cas didn’t have to go looking for anyone else to give him comfort tonight ( _never ever again damn it_ ). If anyone was going to comfort Cas, he ought to be the one.

It occurred to him that if he went through with this, Cas would be coming all over his stomach this time. That was a vaguely disturbing ( _oh God hot as freakin’ **hell**_ ) thought, but he figured he could deal with it. As long as it made Cas feel good, he could manage.

Cas was rubbing against him steadily now, almost like he was trying to seduce Dean. And damn, it was working. Even through his boxers he could feel the heat of Cas’ cock, the way it was starting to leak precome as it stroked up and down. Dean figured the friction of the material probably wasn’t all that comfortable, so he reached down and shoved off his boxers, entirely for Cas’ benefit ( _fuck that felt incredible_ ). 

He kicked the offending undergarment off the side of the bed, to the floor, and then his hand settled onto Cas’ hip, aligning the two of them perfectly, and keeping Cas from moving too fast, because he didn’t want this to be over too soon. His hips were moving now too. He couldn’t stop them, couldn’t even try to stop them. The slick slide of Cas’ cock against his was like nothing he’d ever felt, like being stroked all up and down with silk, and Cas was so hot and so wet ( _hell, that was him as much as it was Cas, he was leaking precome like crazy and his balls were so tight and oh shit he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take_ ). He could hear the soft sound of their bodies moving together now, a wet and dirty and purely sexual noise.

Cas was obviously enjoying this a lot, his muscles taut beneath Dean’s hand, soft moans rising from his throat. It was the middle of the night, and Dean didn’t want him to start crying out like he’d done earlier, so he pressed his lips to Cas’, just to keep him quiet.

He kissed Cas softly, gently, their lips barely touching, the tips of their tongues brushing delicately together, a sweeter and more affectionate kiss than he could remember ever sharing with anyone. His hand tightened possessively on Cas’ hip. Their bodies moved together like they’d done this a thousand times, and yet it was like nothing Dean had ever felt before, and if his eyes were watering again it was just the scent of citrusy bath gel that rose from their heated skin. Just _allergies,_ goddammit. 

He heard himself groaning into Cas’ mouth, and didn’t quite have the wherewithal to make himself stop. Not that it felt that good ( _Jesus it was the best fucking thing ever_ ), but he was pretty sure Cas was close to coming, and that knowledge made him happy. The moisture, he noticed, was making everything kind of slippery, making it hard to keep their dicks aligned. Without conscious thought, Dean shoved Cas over on his back and climbed right on top of him, pinning him, so that they were both perfectly lined up. Just to make sure that this would be good for Cas.

Their kisses grew hotter, deeper, and their sweat-soaked bodies moved faster, and the friction of their cocks rubbing together was nearly unbearable now. Not that he was even close to coming, oh hell no, but he had to admit it did feel kind of good, even if that just reflected the fact that he was happy to be comforting Cas. He wasn’t thinking about the feel of Cas’ hot silken dick against his own, or the way Cas was going to shoot his load all over Dean, or the noises he’d make when he came…

Dean’s thoughts faded as something too powerful to be borne began to roll over him and through him, making him cry out with every movement. He tore his mouth away from Cas’ and pressed his face into the rumpled dark hair in an effort to muffle his cries, squeezing his eyelids shut against the moisture that kept trying to gather there. Cas’ cock jerked in hard spasms, and Dean knew Cas was about to come, and he couldn’t stop his own hips from thrusting wildly in response, the slick wet noises of their bodies moving together becoming almost obscene. 

He needed-- oh, God, he _needed,_ so badly he almost cried with the intensity of it. Fuck it, he _was_ crying, and he didn't know why, and didn't much care. He was past embarrassment, past anything but the aching need. All he was aware of was Cas moving against him, Cas' fingers clutching his shoulders, Cas' body arching up to meet his... 

He felt Cas shudder, felt the first spurt of Cas’ come stripe his belly, heard Cas moan out his name, and heat and sensation overwhelmed him.

He climaxed in a tremendous burst of jaw-clenching, toe-curling pleasure ( _oh Cas oh Cas oh **Castiel**_ ), his come mingling with Cas’, splattering all over both of them, over his chest and his stomach and Cas and the sheets. He heard himself crying out ( _screaming Cas’ name over and over_ ) but couldn’t do a damn thing to shut himself up. He jerked helplessly, caught in the throes of an orgasm so intense he wasn’t sure he could survive it. Ecstasy surged through him, spinning him around like a leaf caught up in a tornado. 

At last the pleasure ebbed, and he felt himself collapse against his friend, his body slack, his mind a white whirling emptiness.

The two of them were soaked in sweat and come and tears, and in some corner of his mind he knew he ought to struggle out of bed and get them both cleaned up before they got permanently stuck together. But he couldn't quite convince his body to move. He lay on top of Cas, sucking in oxygen in deep, shaky breaths, until Cas shoved indignantly at his shoulders. 

And then he rolled off and fell to the mattress, half dead, but not minding all that much. Peace filled him, the first real peace he'd known in weeks, since the night he'd kicked Cas out of the bunker. He felt good. He felt _happy._

He reached out and took Cas' hand in his own, then closed his eyes and let himself be happy, just for a little while.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Brief thoughts of suicide.
> 
> I've always had tinnitus, and am generally not aware of the sound unless I focus on it. I know some people find it horrible and can't filter it out. It's not my intention to downplay anyone's struggles with it here.

Someone was screaming. 

Cas could hear the sound, from far, far away, but he couldn’t seem to push his way into consciousness to investigate. The screaming was almost muffled beneath a terrifying roar, like the heavy thunder of the ocean pounding against a cliff, an earth-shaking, bone-rattling noise. But despite the dreadful roaring, he could hear the screaming, going on and on and on, and somewhere even further away he heard a voice saying urgently, “Cas? Cas!”

The screaming got louder. It was a terrible animal sound, the sort of agonized noise an animal makes when bleeding out its life in a ditch after being hit by a car. Cas managed to rouse up a vague sort of concern, of empathy, and tried very hard to open his eyes. But somehow he couldn’t.

“Cas. _Cas._ ” The voice was closer now. _Dean._ He wanted to say Dean’s name, but he couldn’t manage that, either. The roar grew louder, boring into him, and the screeching went on and on, bloodcurdling and horrible, so evocative of pain that it made him cringe in sympathy. 

“ _CAS!_ ” Dean’s voice was too loud, too desperate to be ignored. Cas managed to pry open his eyelids, and tried to speak, but he couldn’t. His mouth, he found, was already wide open.

He was shocked to realize that he was the one screaming. 

He was curled up in a ball on the bed, his hands clamped over his ears, shrieking. There was a terrible pain eating away at his brain, roaring in his ears, in his head-- a noise that sounded like all the madness in the world, all the rage and hatred and cruelty that marred his Father's Creation, echoing through his skull in wave after wave. He tried to pull the pillow over his ears, but it did no good. The wild cacophonous insanity only grew louder. He screamed in agony, clutching at his head.

Somewhere beyond the madness Dean was speaking, whispering to him, shouting at him, trying to calm him, but he was incapable of calming down. Pain and fear and a sense of wild panic enveloped him. The inside of his brain buzzed with hordes of wasps, roared like a million V8 engines, overwhelmed him with an appalling, chaotic music, like a continent full of people all loudly singing different tunes in different keys. 

He lost himself in the uproar, lost all sense of self, like a single drop of water lost in a vast rolling ocean, or a twig carried along helplessly in a rushing mountain stream. He couldn't even hear himself screaming any more. The noise was the worst thing he’d ever heard, and if a gun had presented itself at that moment he would have gladly shot himself in the head to be rid of it all.

_Make it stop make it stop make it stop—_

Since he’d become human, he’d had endless nightmares about being alone, and yet right now he would have given anything, anything at all, to be all alone in blessed silence. There were far too many voices in his head, shouting unintelligibly, laughing and cackling at him, screaming and howling and shrieking... 

Vaguely, he was aware of Dean dragging him upright, pulling him against his chest, twining his arms around him. It should have been comforting, but in his current state it was as panic-inducing as everything else. He struggled, but Dean held him tightly, holding him close, forcing him into stillness.

Somewhere beyond the horrific noises, he heard the steady, reassuring sound of Dean’s heart thudding. A sane, comforting sound, one he could comprehend. He fought to focus, listening to the soft thumping, letting everything else fade away. It might have been a moment or an hour, but slowly, very slowly, the awful noises started to recede. He could still hear them in the back of his mind, but they were no longer overwhelming. He was himself again.

Relief flooded him. He pressed his ear against Dean’s chest, listening to his heartbeat, and gasped for breath, his muscles relaxing a little.

“You all right now?”

Dean’s voice, gentle and soft, just above him. He became aware that Dean’s face was pressed into his hair, his arms wrapped tightly around Cas as if to protect him against the world, and that they were both still naked. Dean had cleaned them both up during the night, but neither of them had had the energy to get clothes on. Nor had it seemed like a particularly pressing issue.

In a strange way, Cas was grateful that they were both unclothed. He felt terribly vulnerable right now, and somehow he was comforted by the fact that Dean was as naked as he himself was.

“Yes,” Cas managed. “I am… better. But I am not sure… precisely what happened.”

“Angel radio, I figure.” Dean’s hand stroked his hair in a soothing gesture. “You kinda reacted the way I did when you tried to speak to me with your real voice. Remember that?”

Cas remembered his first encounters with the hunter outside of Hell, his own efforts to communicate with the man. He remembered Dean dropping to the ground, covering his ears, and howling mindlessly in pain and panic. Yes, he thought, it was very like that. Except…

“This… is not… merely… one voice,” Cas mumbled, his words faltering and uncertain. Holding the noise at bay was a struggle, and he was not certain he’d be able to keep a grasp on his sanity without the reassuring sound of Dean’s heartbeat to focus on. He took a deep breath and went on more strongly. “And it’s inside—it’s inside my head. It seems that many more of the angels are communicating than before. Something is happening, Dean.”

He felt the slight tension in Dean’s body, although the other man didn’t stop stroking his hair. “Any idea what’s goin’ down?”

“No idea.” Cas heard the frustration in his own voice. “I can’t understand _any_ of it now.”

“Shhh. It’s okay. Not your fault.” Dean’s arms tightened around him. “We probably ought to get dressed and see what we can learn. If they're talking that much, then they might up to somethin' that's drawing attention to them. We should check the internet and the TV, maybe, see what's up. Figure out what they're doing. Can I let go of you?”

“I think so,” Cas said uncertainly. He was not particularly eager to leave Dean’s warm, strong embrace, but he had to admit it would be difficult to get anything accomplished if he had to keep his ear pressed against Dean’s chest all day. It was necessary, he thought, to make the experiment.

Carefully, he moved an inch or two away from Dean. The reassuring thumping of Dean’s heart faded, and the static/voices/dissonance roared in his head. He moaned.

“It’s all right,” Dean said quickly, grabbing his hand and squeezing it hard. “Focus on me, Cas. Listen to my voice, okay? Forget about everything else, and _listen to me._ ”

“Okay.” Cas managed to force out the word, but it _wasn’t_ okay. It was excruciating. And yet he had to get past this. He wasn’t any use to Dean or anyone else curled up in a screaming ball on the bed. “Talk. Please.”

Dean did, his low, reassuring voice filling Cas’ ears. He talked about what he’d been cooking for breakfast at the bunker, how much he wished he could have been cooking for Cas, how much he thought Cas would enjoy scrambled eggs and bacon and toast with grape jelly. He went on, his voice a gentle rumble as he talked about the little pile of DVDs he'd been setting aside to watch with Cas when he got back to the bunker, the way he'd been looking forward to marathoning _Dr. Sexy_ reruns with him, the books he wanted to share with him...

As he talked, the noise seemed to recede to the back of Cas' mind. Yes, he realized, Dean was right. It was a matter of focus. By focusing on Dean and his surroundings, he could dial the angel radio back to a bearable level. It wasn't easy, and he was still aware of the awful noise lurking in the background, ready to overwhelm him if his attention slipped-- but he focused hard on Dean's voice, and that made him feel more normal, more capable of functioning.

"Okay," he said at last. "I think I'm all right."

"Yeah? Is it quiet now?"

"No," Cas said honestly. "But it's a little like the human condition of tinnitus, perhaps-- just because it's there doesn't necessarily mean I have to listen to it. I think I'm learning to ignore it. I had mostly begun to ignore the radio I heard before, since it was meaningless to me, but when the volume went up abruptly, I didn't have a chance to adjust. I suspect that the fact I was sleeping didn't help, either. It crept into my dreams and took me unawares." 

"All right," Dean said. Hesitantly, he let go of Cas' hand, watching for a reaction. Cas could feel the noise gnawing hungrily at the back of his brain, but he lifted his chin, refusing to let it grab hold of him again, and Dean smiled.

"That's my boy," he said softly.

 _My boy._ The phrase seemed oddly appropriate. After last night, Cas thought, he rather felt like he belonged to Dean, and Dean belonged to him. And yet so much remained unsaid. He still didn't know why he'd been cast out of the bunker, or whether Dean would ever let him return. There was still much to be settled between them.

And yet, he thought, a great deal had been settled last night.

He watched as Dean stood up, still stark naked, but utterly unself-conscious about it. Dean turned and walked toward the table near the window, where he'd left their laptop, and Cas realized that he'd been right. Dean did indeed have very nice glutes.

Dean suddenly froze, his spine and shoulders going very tense.

"Dean? What's wrong?"

The other man didn't look back at him. He resumed his walk toward the window, which was covered by heavy shades, except for a slight crack that let the golden light of dawn through. Dean had apparently spotted something through the crack. He reached out and widened the crack, staring, then let the shades fall again.

" _Shit,_ " he said, very softly but very sincerely.

"What is it?" Cas repeated.

"I guess we don't have to figure out what the angels are up to, after all." Dean turned his head and looked back over his shoulder, his eyes dark with anxiety. "It looks like they've come to tell us."


	11. Chapter 11

“What the fuck is going on?”

Dean stared out the window at the impossible sight of fifty or more people standing in the parking lot just outside their motel room. The rising sun lit them all in gold, and they stood inhumanly still, like statues. He might have thought they were statues, but for the occasional flash of blue he could see in their eyes, and an odd trick of the light around their heads that looked like…

Halos.

His trained memory picked out faces in the crowd he’d seen before—there was the first woman they’d interviewed; there was a red-haired guy they’d passed on the street; there was a little pigtailed girl he’d seen walk past them…

Somehow the angels had followed them here. But considering the Enochian symbols etched on his ribs and tattooed on Cas’s hip, that ought not to be possible. They were both invisible to angels, and he’d been certain that no one had followed him on the road. So how in the _hell…_?

Cas crept up next to him, peering through the slot in the shades. He still looked shaky and ill, so Dean tried really hard not to admire the play of muscles in his bare back, the way the wings tattooed on his skin rippled, the way his hips rolled when he walked. He didn’t totally succeed.

Jesus. Cas was feeling like crap, and here he was lusting after him. He was a sick bastard, all right. But hell, after last night, who could blame him? He remembered the way they’d pressed against each other like they wanted to merge into one another, the soft kisses that had slowly become deep and hot and intimate, the way the two of them had come together in a searing rush of pleasure, and he couldn't stop himself from sighing at the memory. 

He couldn't deny the images rolling around in his mind were awesome, but he couldn’t spend a lot of time mooning over Cas’ naked body. Some serious shit was going down here. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but when fifty angels showed up on your doorstep and just stood there glaring, it was pretty much a given that you were in a shitload of trouble.

“What do they want?” Cas whispered.

“No idea,” Dean answered. “And I’m sure as fuck not gonna open the door and ask 'em.”

_Dean Winchester._

The voice came from everywhere and from nowhere. Cas whimpered, clutching at his head again. Dean caught him and pulled him against his chest, holding him protectively, hoping he could keep the other man from going to pieces again. He guessed it was an angel speaking to him, and wondered why he himself wasn't on the floor, covering his ears and yelling in pain. Most of his conversations with angels speaking in their true voice hadn't gone too well.

“Who the hell are you?” he said into the empty room, with as much arrogant bravado as he could muster—and that was quite a lot. It took a lot to really scare him. He’d faced down Death without pissing his pants, after all. 

Well, not much, anyway.

_My name is Ephraim. And this is my garrison._

“Nice,” Dean sneered. “Almost lifelike.”

In his arms, he felt Cas tremble, and he held the fallen angel more tightly. He couldn’t make out if Cas was scared or in pain, and he didn’t want him to be either one. 

“Ephraim,” Cas managed. His voice was shaky, but he sounded coherent enough. “What are you doing here?”

 _Hello, Castiel._ The voice sounded pleased. _I came for you._

“Yeah, well, we’re not leaving this room,” Dean snapped, hanging on to Cas for dear life, just in case the voice might be able to exert some sort of freaky mind control over his friend. He'd learned to be wary of angel mojo. He looked around at the sigils he'd scrawled on the walls, and spoke confidently. “And I don’t think you’re coming in any time soon. So you might as well get lost.”

 _You will come out._ An ominous rumble sounded, making the floor move beneath their feet. _Or this motel will collapse, and all hundred and thirty-two humans inside will die._

Motherfucking angels. Always cheating. Weren't these assholes supposed to be guardians, the protectors of humanity? Instead they acted like humans were cockroaches who needed to be squashed every time they poked their antennae out into the light.

Dean ground his teeth together. He’d known the angels were out to kill Cas, but Jesus, they’d surely had chance after chance to kill him while he was working at the Gas-N-Sip. Why the hell had they waited till now?

“They’ll get out,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. “They’re probably all getting up right about now, getting ready to hit the road...”

 _None of them will awaken until I allow it,_ the voice said. _I am in their dreams, and I will keep them there, helpless, until you emerge from your room with Castiel._

Well, that explained why no one had come pounding on their door while Cas was screaming his head off. It might also explain the unbearable sound that had apparently awakened Cas. If the angels had used their power to move into people’s dreams and trap them in a sleeping state, Cas had probably sensed that on some level and reacted to it. Or maybe he'd just heard them all talking about it. Dean didn't know, and sure as hell wasn't gonna ask Ephraim.

But it didn’t matter. Cas was his. That was finally clear in his head. He’d let Ezekiel push him into sending Cas away, but he damn well wasn’t letting him go again. Not now and not ever.

“Fuck off,” Dean said. “I’m not handing him over to you so you can kill him, you sonofabitch.”

 _Oh, I do not wish to kill him._ The voice sounded surprised, almost shocked, at the thought. The ground rumbled beneath their feet again, a reminder that the motel could come down around their heads at any moment Ephraim chose. _Fucking angel mojo,_ Dean thought grimly.

“Yeah, right,” he growled. “You just want to have a nice brunch with him, I bet. Maybe do a little shopping, watch an action movie...”

 _What I want,_ the voice said, _is his body._

That particular phrasing made Dean bristle. “I got here first, buddy. So back off.”

_I’m sorry, Dean. I’m afraid I can’t do that._

Great. Just great. He was talking with Hal. In case he hadn’t already figured out that in addition to being a big bag of dicks, this angel was a psycho. 

Oblivious to his mental meanderings, the voice went on, steady, implacable, and scary as hell.

 _Castiel’s body,_ it said, _was created by God’s hand, and in his body and soul is contained more pure power than in any human body on Earth._

Ice ran down Dean’s spine. He was perfectly aware that Cas' body had ceased being Jimmy Novak, holy tax accountant, a long time ago. Cas’ vessel had met a gory and untimely demise at least twice (Dean still wasn't clear on precisely what had happened to Cas after the whole Leviathan mess), and both times it had been brought back by mysterious supernatural means, while Jimmy Novak, the poor sap, had presumably gone on to Heaven. Cas had believed he’d been brought back by his Holy Father, but Dean wasn’t sure about that, since the so-called Holy Father seemed to be more of a Holy Dickwad who’d abandoned Heaven and Earth to their own devices a long time ago. Still, it was obvious that something really huge and powerful had reconstructed Cas, because when he’d come back he’d been even more badass than he’d been before—a seraph instead of an ordinary angel, he’d explained, capable of extra-strength smiting. 

Dean didn’t know if seraphim were created by the hand of God, or some sort of holy assembly line, but there was no denying that Cas’ body was no longer a normal human born of woman, but rather some sort of construct, deliberately designed and engineered to contain an angel’s grace. Cas might look like an ordinary forty-year-old dude, but he... well, he had a Heavenly body.

Like Dean hadn't already figured _that_ out.

“Yeah?” he said. “So what?”

He was pretty sure he didn’t want to know the answer to that question. And sure enough, he was right.

The voice—Ephraim—answered.

_Castiel is going to be my vessel,_ it said. 


	12. Chapter 12

“You are not the first to come up with this plan.” Cas spoke from the shelter of Dean’s arms. He still felt wobbly, still heard the terrible buzzing at the back of his mind, but he forced himself to straighten up and stand on his own two feet, shrugging off Dean’s embrace. He looked at the other man, speaking to him rather than to Ephraim. “Hael—the first angel I met after the Fall. She wanted to take me as a vessel, too.”

The angels were desperate. He understood that now, much more clearly than he had understood when he met Hael. There were so many of them, homeless, damaged, and so few human bodies fit for long-term angelic occupation. When he first came to Earth, he had been fortunate in that he’d been able to occupy a vessel from the bloodline meant to contain his grace. Jimmy Novak’s body had been perfectly suited for him. Most of the fallen had to choose vessels more or less at random, which meant that a few lucky ones thrived, but that most of the bodies fell apart rather quickly. 

“But they can’t,” Dean said. “Not now. Your tattoo—"

_Can be removed, easily enough._

“That doesn’t matter,” Cas said, turning his attention back to Ephraim. “I will never give you my consent.”

A deep laugh made the walls shake again. _Consent is of little import. That matter can be easily circumvented. Can it not, Dean Winchester?_

Dean flinched visibly, and Cas looked up at him, seeing guilt written on Dean’s face as clearly as if it had been in hundred-point font. “Dean, what--?”

“No clue,” Dean muttered, avoiding Cas’ gaze. “Don’t know what he means.”

 _It was Dean Winchester who showed us the way,_ Ephraim said. _It was his idea._

“Dean,” Cas said, more insistently. “What is he talking about?”

Dean looked as miserably guilty as Cas had ever seen him. “Sam,” he mumbled. “I had—I had to save him—"

“Yes,” Cas agreed. “You told me that Ezekiel was healing him…” He paused, and thought about it. “But he couldn’t have healed him, could he? The damage had extended far beyond my capability to heal, so Ezekiel couldn’t possibly have managed it either. Dean… what did you _do?_ ”

Dean looked pale and unhappy. “Ezekiel… Zeke… he kind of… well, he’s, um, sharing Sammy.”

“You mean, Sam is his vessel?”

“No. Well, sort of. He’s in Sam, but most of the time, Sam is in charge. He said he would heal Sam and at the same time Sam would heal him.”

Cas recalled their conversation yesterday. Now he understood where Dean had come up with the wild notion of angels sharing their vessels with the original human occupants. “That’s not possible,” he said. 

_It is very possible,_ Ephraim said. _After falling to Earth, Ezekiel was near death, but he discovered this method of occupying a vessel was feasible, even for a badly injured angel. True consent can be circumvented, because the vessel does not struggle against the angel's presence. Thus the angel can choose the best possible vessel, without having worry about whether or not the vessel will grant consent. This method allows the vessel to become acclimated to the angel, so nearly all of them survive. The angel absorbs the power from the host's soul and only slowly takes over the body._

“What?” Dean’s head snapped up, and he glared out the window. “Are you shitting me? Zeke never said anything about taking Sammy over!” 

“Of course he didn’t,” Cas said tiredly. “It’s not the sort of thing he’d be likely to admit to, is it?”

" _Dicks,_ ” Dean snarled.

"Dean. You had to know that making an arrangement like this with an angel was a very bad idea.”

“I couldn’t help it, okay?” Dean squared his shoulders, wearing his stubborn _I-did-what-I-thought-was-right-goddamnit_ face. “Sammy was dying—I couldn’t find you anywhere—I didn’t know what to _do_ , Cas. He was _dying,_ right there in front of me. I was losing him.”

Cas nodded. He knew as well as anyone Dean’s grim determination to always protect of his brother, the insane lengths the other man would go to in order to keep Sam safe. He was just as determined to care for his friends. Which meant—

“When the reaper killed me,” he said. “It was Ezekiel who saved me, wasn’t it?”

Dean didn’t answer, but he hardly needed to. His face spoke volumes. Cas sighed, remembering Dean's voice, low and broken. _I wouldn’t have, Cas—I swear I wouldn’t have—but he **made** me—_

Despite the gravity of the situation, warmth swirled through him. Dean hadn't thrown him out because he didn't want him in the bunker, or because he found Cas unworthy somehow. He'd been forced into it by Ezekiel, who probably feared Cas would realize what was going on, and might somehow endanger Ezekiel's endgame. Naturally "Zeke" had demanded that he leave, and had probably followed up his demand with threats on Sam's life.

Cas was as certain as he'd ever been of anything that it hadn't been Dean who'd wanted him to leave the bunker. He'd simply gotten himself in over his head, as he was prone to doing, and had found himself with no options other than the one Zeke allowed him.

Dean, he thought with exasperated affection, was undeniably an idiot. But he was Cas' idiot.

“So Ezekiel is in Sam,” he said, “feeding off his soul somehow. And now Ephraim wants to do the same to me?”

 _Ezekiel is my lieutenant,_ the voice said. _He was dying, and in desperation, came up with the idea of consuming the power from a human soul, using it as fuel while he recovered. I quickly saw the possibilities inherent in this idea. My garrison was more badly injured than most, and while Bartholomew’s garrison is larger, we need to become more powerful. This is the best way. The only way._

“You’re not taking Cas, damn it,” Dean rumbled in his most threatening tones. “You’ve blown up at least four vessels already.”

 _That was not us, but Bartholomew’s garrison. They discovered our location, and tried to invade our stronghold, but we had already assimilated most of the suitable vessels in the area. And in fact we have not lost a single vessel so far. This method is much easier on the host, and results in far greater power for the occupying angel._

“But the end result is the same,” Cas said. The sound of angel voices buzzed in his head, ominous, terrifying. “Eventually, you take over the vessel entirely.”

 _No, Castiel, the end result is very different. In the end, when we have fully occupied our vessels, we will be far stronger. We will defeat Bartholomew and his garrison... and then we will rule this planet._

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” Dean said.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could have gotten this done before "Heaven Can't Wait" aired, but alas, it got bigger than I expected. Obviously it doesn't match up with that episode particularly well, so this is now officially canon divergent.

Another fucking civil war.

Dean was getting seriously tired of angels. Like it wasn’t bad enough they’d had endless civil wars going on in Heaven… no, now they’d come down to Earth, and a big bloody war was the first thing they thought of. Of _course_ it was. And naturally they had to start by drafting soldiers, human soldiers, to serve as their vessels. He took another look out the window, seeing the fifty or so people just standing there. Two or three of them were little kids. _Kids,_ damn it.

He still wasn’t clear on how the angels were managing this. Ephraim had seemed to imply that consent wasn’t really necessary, but Sammy had had to consent to Zeke’s occupation. Well, sort of. Admittedly it had been a little underhanded. He wondered if they were lying to all these people, tricking them, or just sneaking into their heads uninvited.

But the exact method didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that he needed to get Cas the hell out of trouble. Unfortunately Cas was a freakin’ magnet for trouble, and always had been. He’d gotten Ephraim to monologue for a while, bought them a little time, but that didn’t benefit them much because he didn’t know what to do with the time. Staying in this motel was their only option, but if Ephraim brought it down around all the sleeping people here… well, that really wasn’t an option either.

He decided the first thing to do was get some clothes on. If they wound up having to run for it, the last thing he wanted to do was charge butt-naked across the motel parking lot. He backed away from the window, dug in his duffel bag, and found some new clothes. He started putting them on, and tossed some of his spares in Cas’ direction. His jeans would be a little long on Cas, but otherwise they weren’t that different, sizewise. Cas didn’t ask stupid questions. He just pulled on the clothes without comment.

With clothing and shoes on, Dean paced back to the window and considered how temptingly close the Impala was. Practically right in front of their door. Every instinct he had was urging him to run like hell, to race for the Impala, jump into her, and hit the gas. But he was unhappily aware there wasn’t a chance in the world that he and Cas could get to his baby before they were captured, not with fifty angels just standing there watching. Dean knew from personal experience how easily angels could throw humans around.

Besides that, the other man was in a pretty fragile state. He knew Cas well enough to tell. He might have fought back the noise in his head, but it was still there, and he was still twitchy, jumpy, _scared._ Dean didn’t think the angels would have to do much to turn Cas back into a basket case. All they had to do was turn up the volume a little, and Cas would be back on the floor, curled up in a quivering ball. And Dean was damned if he’d stand there and watch them torture Cas again. No, escape wasn’t an option.

The sad truth was that he was out of options.

Well, no. He had one option. But Cas was going to be seriously pissed off when he tried it, and it wasn’t likely to work anyway.

Still, it was all he had. You played the cards you were dealt, and if you only had the one-- well, you played it when you had to.

And he _had_ to. He'd already fucked up his desperate effort to save Sammy. It was obvious now that Zeke had no plans of letting him go... which Dean had feared from the start, admittedly, but he'd hoped against hope that his concerns had been wrong. He'd known all along that Zeke might not be all that great a guy, though. He'd known a lot of angels now, and the vast majority of them had been dicks. So it unfortunately didn't come as a total surprise to learn that Zeke had ulterior motives.

Still. _Sammy._

_My fault. All my fault._

An all-too-familiar weight of guilt pressed down on him, but he squared his shoulders, doing his best to ignore it. Yeah, he'd fucked up, but he'd deal with that later. He'd get Sammy back, one way or the other, even if he had to gank some feathery asses to do it. But in the meantime, he wasn't losing someone else to these dicks. 

He remembered his earlier thoughts. Cas was his. _His._ And he wasn't giving him up to a bunch of genocidal bodysnatchers, damn it.

Ephraim had quit his damn booming. A long, heavy silence filled the air. Dean pulled back the heavy shade and looked out across the brightening parking lot. The angels were still there, just staring. 

_Creepy as fuck._

He took a deep breath, and spoke clearly.

“Ephraim,” he said. “Take me instead.”

Beside him, Cas’ eyebrows drew down. Just as Dean had expected, he looked extremely pissed.

“ _Dean,_ ” he hissed, but Dean ignored him.

Ephraim sounded amused. _You have Enochian anti-possession sigils etched on your ribs. Or have you forgotten?_

"An angel put those there," Dean said. "I'm willing to bet another angel could take 'em off."

_Perhaps. In any event, why would I want **you?**_

“Because I’m special too.” He stretched out his arms and gave his cockiest grin. “I’m a Grade-A vessel, assembled atom by atom by an angel for the Archangel Michael himself. And I won't fight you the way Castiel would. In fact, if you promise to leave Cas alone… then I’m all yours.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-canon compliant, of course. It's been a while since I worked on this one, so if there are any stupid continuity errors, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Live bait.

Cas was familiar with the concept, but he didn’t particularly approve of Dean using himself as the bait when Cas himself could have served in that capacity perfectly well. It wasn’t hard to figure out Dean’s plan. There was no hope that an anti-angel sigil could disperse such a large group of angels scattered over such a wide area, and they both knew it. If they scrawled one on the wall and attempted to use it, all they would succeed in doing would be dispersing a few of the closest angels—and given Ephraim's apparent ability to put humans to sleep at will, they’d never get a chance to try it a second time. 

But if Dean could lure in Ephraim—well, if you cut off the head, then the body floundered. That was a basic strategic principle that Cas had understood since his fledgling days. If they got rid of Ephraim temporarily, sending him away to wherever angels went when Heaven’s gates were closed, there might conceivably be enough confusion in the angelic ranks that they could “make a break for it.” More than likely they’d both be thrown into a wall instead… but it was the only chance they had for escape, so they had to take it.

Sure enough, Dean made a surreptitious circle with his hand, wordlessly telling Cas to draw a sigil on the wall. Cas glared at him, trying to convey his displeasure with the entire idea, but Dean only flashed the half-crazed, defiant grin he showed the world when his back was up against a wall, and Cas sighed.

Offering oneself up as live bait, he supposed, was just another day in your life when you were a Winchester.

He picked up his angel knife, cut his hand, and rapidly began drawing the necessary symbol on the wall with his own blood. When he’d finished, he pocketed the bloody knife and looked back over his shoulder, and Dean winked at him. 

“C’mon, you bastard!” he yelled at the ceiling. “Come on and _take_ me!”

There was a whooshing sound, and a brilliant white smoke began eddying into the room through the heating ducts. Dean stood there, arms wide, face turned up, waiting without flinching, just as Jimmy Novak had once waited for Cas to possess him. 

The noise in Cas’ head rose to a nearly unbearable level. He breathed heavily, trying to keep himself focused. He couldn’t afford to fall to the carpet and curl up in a ball now, not when Dean was depending on him. He had a job to do, and he’d damn well do it.

He waited until the last bit of white smoke had entered the room. It began swirling downward, rushing toward Dean, and Cas slapped his cut and bleeding hand against the sigil before Ephraim could try to attempt removing the engraved Enochian from Dean's ribs. In a blinding flash of light, the smoke disappeared.

A terrible sound of anger roared in Cas’ head, and he moaned and grabbed at his skull, staggering, almost falling to his knees. 

“C’mon, _c’mon_ ,” Dean growled, and grabbed him around the waist, holding him upright and all but dragging him toward the door. He caught up his duffel bag, slinging it over his shoulder, then unbolted the door and yanked it open. The two of them stumbled out into the rising dawn. 

The Impala sat not far from their motel room, gleaming like obsidian in the sunlight. There were, Cas noted through bleary eyes, no angels within twenty feet of the car. The sigil had been more effective than he’d dared hope. And just as he’d suspected, without Ephraim’s guidance, the rest of the angels were just standing there, looking blank. 

He remembered Ephraim’s words: _My garrison was more badly injured than most._ The angels might be somehow devouring the power from their hosts’ souls, but it was evidently a slow process, and most of them were obviously not in full command of their powers yet. He suspected that if he could see their grace, it would be badly tattered, and hardly glowing at all. 

Nevertheless, a few of the angels began slowly walking in their direction. _Shambling,_ like zombies. Dean let go of Cas, and the fallen angel staggered around to the passenger side of the Impala. By the time he’d managed to wrest the door open, the car’s engine was roaring, and Dean was throwing it into reverse. Cas fell in and slammed the door shut, and Dean hit the accelerator. The car shot backward, narrowly missing a group of angels who were slowly closing on them, and then the tires squealed as Dean threw the gearshift into drive and “put the pedal to the metal,” as he often expressed it. They shot out of the parking lot and spun around a curve too fast—throwing Cas, who had not yet put on his seatbelt, hard against the door—and hit the four-lane road in front of the motel with what Cas considered a dangerous excess of speed.

At least it would have ordinarily been a dangerous excess. Right now, it wasn’t excessive in the least, merely prudent. 

He fumbled for the seatbelt, fastened it, and craned his head around, looking in the rear view window for pursuit. He caught a glimpse of the angels just standing there, looking bewildered, and then the Impala rounded a curve, and he lost sight of them.

“That,” Dean said, “was too fucking close.”

“But Dean…” Cas rubbed at his forehead. His head still ached, and he was having a hard time keeping the noise from interfering with his functioning. He was beginning to suspect the reason the noise hurt him so much was because it was the howling of severely injured angels. His former brothers and sisters, crying out in terrible pain. “What about all those people in the motel?”

“Ephraim doesn’t want them, Cas. He wants us. They were hostages, that’s all. We’d just endanger them if we went back, I figure. And honestly? We can’t go back anyway, because I got no clue how to deal with that many angels.”

“But that town is in danger as long as Ephraim’s garrison is stationed there. If we could confine the angels in a smaller area, trick them all into a single room somehow, we could use the sigil on them…”

“I don’t think it’s about area, Cas. There were just too damn many of them. I don’t think we can ever hope to take out more than twenty or so at once. And even that doesn’t really hurt ‘em, just sort of whammies them for a while.”

“At least they aren’t following us.” Cas thought about that for a moment, and as he did, his headache began to fade. _It’s a matter of focus,_ he reminded himself. _If you focus on something else, you won’t hear the angel radio as much._ “And why wouldn’t they follow us? They can’t use their wings. They must have driven to get here. Why aren't they pursuing us now?”

Dean blew out a breath, looking sour. “I guess their vessels drove them here. I mean, the angels don’t exactly look like they’re running at full power, do they? Maybe Ephraim was able to compel their vessels to cooperate, and now that he’s gone…”

Cas nodded. “But when he comes back from wherever we sent him, they’ll all come after us.”

“You're probably right, damn it.” Dean scowled. “I don’t get how they’re following us. I mean, we both have the Enochian sigils. Those ought to make us invisible. But they obviously knew you were in that town, and then they followed us both…”

“If one rules out the supernatural,” Cas said dryly, “then the explanation must be natural.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Our cell phones,” he said. “I always turn off the GPS, but I bet Zeke turned ‘em back on remotely. Sam’d know how, and he knows everything Sam does. You’ve still got that cell I gave you, right?”

“I left it back in the motel room. You?”

“Just got one on me. Here…” Dean fished it out of his pocket. “See if the GPS got switched on.”

Cas checked. “It’s on,” he reported. “Want me to turn it off?”

“Let’s be safe. Chuck the damn thing out the window.”

Cas did so, and then went back to considering their problem. “Crowley used a gun on me once,” he said. “He melted down the silver from an angel blade. It did just as much damage as a blade would have.”

Dean pressed his lips together. “I’d hate like hell to kill all those vessels, Cas. Fifty people or more, and some of ‘em kids… and besides, we’ve only got the one blade.”

“Two blades,” Cas said. “I shoved mine back into my pocket.”

“Smart boy. Still, I don’t think we dare melt down both of them, and one of ‘em won’t be enough for so many angels.” He scowled. “Damn it, I don’t dare drive back home. Zeke—Ezekiel—probably knows the score, and the minute we walk in…” He blew out his breath in a sigh, looking thunderous. “Shit. _Sammy._ ”

“I think we should consider Sammy a hostage," Cas said, reaching out and shyly putting his hand on Dean's thigh in an effort to comfort the other man. "And I am not convinced the angel calling himself ‘Zeke’ is actually Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a good soldier, but not especially clever. I find it hard to believe he could dream up this unusual method for inhabiting a human body in order to regain strength, no matter how desperate he was.”

“You could be right. I didn’t exactly get a chance to check his ID.” Dean made a growling sound, and the muscles beneath Cas' hand went more taut than before. “Goddamnit. This is all my fault, Cas. If I hadn’t let Zeke into Sammy’s head…”

“Then Sammy would be dead, would he not?”

“Still. Sammy’ll be really pissed with me when he finds out. He wouldn’t have wanted…” He broke off, clearing his throat. “But what’s done is done, I guess. We gotta stay clear of Sammy so Zeke can’t use him against us, or hurt him. We ought to stay away from other people as much as possible, too, just in case Ephraim’s garrison catches up with us. These bastards obviously don’t mind killin’ people if it suits their purposes.”

“So if we can't go to the bunker or a motel room... where should we go?”

Dean shrugged, and gave the Impala’s steering wheel a loving pat.

“For now,” he said, “I guess Baby is our home.”


End file.
